THE 
A.F. 

MEMORIAL  LIBRARY 


POEMS 

BY 

ALAN   SEEGER 


LETTERS  AND  DIARY 
OF  ALAN  SEEGER 


"The  fine  spirit  of  Alan  Seeger  has  been  re 
vealed  to  us  in  his  poems,  in  lines  which  can  never 
be  forgotten  and  which  we  had  thought  had 
reached  the  very  climax  of  inspired  expression. 
But  as  a  disclosure  of  the  man  himself  this  simple 
prose  surpasses  them.  ...  It  would,  indeed,  be 
difficult  to  imagine  a  more  direct  and  simple  narra 
tion  of  facts  than  this." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


POEMS 

BY 

ALAN    SEEGER 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 
BY 

WILLIAM   ARCHER 


NEW   YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

MCiMXXVI 

rfU  ., 


,.y 

I  MEMJDRJAL 


ON  wfcMjjprAf    [  IBRARY 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 
Published  December,  1916 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  BY  WILLIAM  ARCHER    .  ix 

JUVENILIA: 

AN  ODE  TO  NATURAL  BEAUTY 3 

THE  DESERTED  GARDEN 10 

THE  TORTURE  OF  CUAUHTEMOC 27 

THE  NYMPHOLEPT 32 

THE  WANDERER 34 

THE  NEED  TO  LOVE 37 

EL  EXTRAVIADO 39 

LA  NUE 41 

ALL  THAT'S  Nor  LOVE 44 

PARIS 45 

THE  SULTAN'S  PALACE 58 

FRAGMENTS 63 

THIRTY  SONNETS: 

I-XVI 68 

KYRENAIKOS 84 

ANTINOUS 85 

VIVIEN 86 

I  LOVED 87 

VlRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE 88 

WITH  A  COPY  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  SONNETS  ON 

LEAVING  COLLEGE 89 

WRITTEN  IN  A  VOLUME  OF  THE  COMTESSE  DE 

NOAILLES 90 

v 


678306 


PAUB 

COUCY     ............  91 

TEZCOTZINCO     ..........  92 

THE  OLD  LOWE  HOUSE,  STATEN  ISLAND  .      .  93 

ONEATA  ............  94 

ON  THE  CLIFFS,  NEWPORT     ......  95 

To  ENGLAND  AT  THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE 

BALKAN  WAR      .........  96 

AT  THE  TOMB  OF  NAPOLEON  BEFORE  THE 

ELECTIONS  IN  AMERICA  —  NOVEMBER,  1912  .  97 

THE  RENDEZVOUS      .........  98 

Do  You  REMEMBER  ONCE  ........  101 

THE  BAYADERE     ..........  105 

EUD^EMON  ............  106 

BROCELIANDE  ...........  107 

LYONESSE  ............  108 

TITHONUS  ............  109 

AN  ODE  TO  ANTARES      ........  Ill 

TRANSLATIONS: 

DANTE.     INFERNO,  CANTO  XXVI       ....  117 

ARIOSTO.     ORLANDO  FURIOSO,  CANTO  X,  91-99  123 

ON  A  THEME  IN  THE  GREEK  ANTHOLOGY     .      .  127 
AFTER  AN  EPIGRAM  OF  CLEMENT  MAROT     .     . 


LAST  POEMS: 

THE  AISNE  (1914-15)     ........  131 

CHAMPAGNE  (1914-15)    ........  134 

THE  HOSTS      ...........  138 

MAKTOOB   ............  141 

I  HAVE  A  RENDEZVOUS  WITH  DEATH  .....  144 

vi 


PAGE 

SONNETS: 

1 145 

II 146 

III 147 

IV.      TO  ...  IN   CHURCH 148 

V 149 

VI 150 

VII 151 

VIII 152 

IX 153 

X 154 

XI.   ON  RETURNING  TO  THE  FRONT  AFTER  LEAVE  155 

XII 156 

BELLINGLISE 157 

LIEBESTOD 159 

RESURGAM 161 

A  MESSAGE  TO  AMERICA 162 

INTRODUCTION  AND  CONCLUSION  OF  A  LONG  POEM  167 
ODE  IN  MEMORY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  VOLUNTEERS 

FALLEN  FOR  FRANCE  .  170 


vii 


INTRODUCTION 


INTRODUCTION 

THIS  book  contains  the  undesigned,  but  all  the  more 
spontaneous  and  authentic,  biography  of  a  very  rare 
spirit.  It  contains  the  record  of  a  short  life,  into  which 
was  crowded  far  more  of  keen  experience  and  high  aspira 
tion — of  the  thrill  of  sense  and  the  rapture  of  soul — than 
it  is  given  to  most  men,  even  of  high  vitality,  to  extract 
from  a  life  of  twice  the  length.  Alan  Seeger  had  barely 
passed  his  twenty-eighth  birthday,  when,  charging  up  to 
the  German  trenches  on  the  field  of  Belloy-en-Santerre, 
his  "escouade"  of  the  Foreign  Legion  was  caught  in  a 
deadly  flurry  of  machine-gun  fire,  and  he  fell,  with  most 
of  his  comrades,  on  the  blood-stained  but  reconquered 
soil.  To  his  friends  the  loss  was  grievous,  to  literature  it 
was — we  shall  never  know  how  great,  but  assuredly  not 
small.  Yet  this  was  a  case,  if  ever  there  was  one,  in  which 
we  may  not  only  say  "Nothing  is  here  for  tears,"  but 
may  add  to  the  well-worn  phrase  its  less  familiar  sequel: 

Nothing  to  wail 

Or  knock  the  breast,  no  weakness,  no  contempt, 
Dispraise,  or  blame, — nothing  but  well  and  fair, 
And  what  may  quiet  us  in  a  death  so  noble. 

Of  all  the  poets  who  have  died  young,  none  has  died  so 
happily.  Without  suggesting  any  parity  of  stature,  one 
cannot  but  think  of  the  group  of  English  poets  who, 
about  a  hundred  years  ago,  were  cut  off  in  the  flower  of 
their  age.  Keats,  coughing  out  his  soul  by  the  Spanish 

xi 


Steps;  Shelley's  spirit  of  flame  snuffed  out  by  a  chance 
capful  of  wind  from  the  hills  of  Carrara;  Byron,  stung 
by  a  fever-gnat  on  the  very  threshold  of  his  great  ad 
venture — for  all  these  we  can  feel  nothing  but  poignant 
unrelieved  regret.  Alan  Seeger,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
can  very  truly  envy.  Youth  had  given  him  all  that  it 
had  to  give;  and  though  he  would  fain  have  lived  on — 
though  no  one  was  ever  less  world-weary  than  he — yet  in 
the  plenitude  of  his  exultant  strength,  with  eye  un- 
dimmed  and  pulse  unslackening,  he  met  the  death  he  had 
voluntarily  challenged,  in  the  cause  of  the  land  he  loved, 
and  in  the  moment  of  victory.  Again  and  again,  both  in 
prose  and  in  verse,  he  had  said  that  this  seemed  to  him  a 
good  death  to  die;  and  two  years  of  unflinching  endurance 
of  self-imposed  hardship  and  danger  had  proved  that  he 
meant  what  he  said. 

I  do  not,  I  repeat,  pretend  to  measure  him  with  Shelley, 
Byron  or  Keats,  though  I  think  none  of  them  would  have 
disdained  his  gift  of  song.  But  assuredly  he  is  of  their 
fellowship  in  virtue,  not  only  of  his  early  death,  but  of 
his  whole-hearted  devotion  to  the  spirit  of  Romance,  as 
they  understood  it.  From  his  boyhood  upward,  his  one 
passion  was  for  beauty;  and  it  was  in  the  guise  of  Ro 
mance  that  beauty  revealed  itself  to  him.  He  was  from 
the  first  determined  not  only  to  write  but  to  live  Ro 
mance,  and  when  fate  threw  in  his  way  a  world-historic 
opportunity,  he  seized  it  with  delight.  He  knew  that  he 
was  dicing  with  Death,  but  that  was  the  very  essence  of 
his  ideal;  and  he  knew  that  if  Death  won  the  throw,  his 
ideal  was  crowned  and  consummated,  for  ever  safe  from 
the  withering  touch  of  time,  or  accidental  soilure.  If  it 
had  been  given  to  Swinburne  to  fall,  rifle  in  hand,  on,  say, 
the  field  of  Mentana,  we  should  have  been  the  poorer 
by  many  splendid  verses,  but  the  richer  by  a  heroic  life- 

xii 


story.  And  would  his  lot  have  been  the  less  enviable? 
Nay,  surely,  much  the  more.  That  is  the  thought  which 
may  well  bring  solace  to  those  who  loved  Alan  Seeger, 
and  who  may  at  first  have  felt  as  an  unmixed  cruelty  the 
cutting  short  of  so  eager,  so  generous,  so  gallant  a  life. 

The  description  "Juvenilia"  attached  to  the  first  series 
of  these  poems  is  of  his  own  choosing.  It  is  for  the  reader 
to  judge  what  allowance  is  to  be  made  for  unripeness, 
whether  of  substance  or  of  form.  Criticism  is  none  of 
my  present  business.  But  I  think  no  discerning  reader 
can  fail  to  be  impressed  by  one  great  virtue  pervading 
all  the  poet's  work — its  absolute  sincerity.  There  is  no 
pose,  no  affectation  of  any  sort.  There  are  marks  of  the 
loving  study  of  other  poets,  and  these  the  best.  We  are 
frequently  reminded  of  this  singer  and  of  that.  The 
young  American  is  instinctively  loyal  to  the  long  tradi 
tion  of  English  literature.  He  is  content  to  undergo  the 
influence  of  the  great  masters,  and  does  not  seek  for  pre 
mature  originality  on  the  by-paths  of  eccentricity.  But 
while  he  is  the  disciple  of  many,  he  is  the  vassal  of  none. 
His  matter  is  always  his  own,  the  fruit  of  personal  vision, 
experience,  imagination,  even  if  he  may  now  and  then 
unconsciously  pour  it  into  a  mould  provided  by  another. 
He  is  no  mere  echo  of  the  rhythms  of  this  poet,  or  mimic 
of  that  other's  attitude  and  outlook.  The  great  zest  of 
living  which  inspires  him  is  far  too  real  and  intense  to 
clothe  itself  in  the  trappings  of  any  alien  individuality. 
He  is  too  straightforward  to  be  even  dramatic.  It  is  not 
his  instinct  to  put  on  a  mask,  even  for  purposes  of  artis 
tic  personation,  and  much  less  of  affectation. 

If  ever  there  was  a  being  who  said  "Yea"  to  life,  ac 
cepted  it  as  a  glorious  gift,  and  was  determined  to  live 
it  with  all  his  might,  it  was  Alan  Seeger.  Such  a  frame 
of  mind  is  too  instinctive  and  temperamental  to  be  called 

xiii 


optimism.  It  is  not  the  result  of  a  balancing  of  good  and 
ill,  and  a  reasoned  decision  that  good  preponderates. 
Rather  it  is  a  direct  perception,  an  intuition,  of  the  beauty 
and  wonder  of  the  universe — an  intuition  too  overpow 
ering  to  be  seriously  disturbed  by  the  existence  of  pain 
and  evil,  some  of  which,  at  any  rate,  has  its  value  as  a 
foil,  a  background,  to  joy.  This  was  the  message — not 
a  philosophy  but  an  irresistible  emotion — which  he  sought 
to  deliver  through  the  medium  of  an  art  which  he  seri 
ously  studied  and  deeply  loved.  It  spoke  from  the  very 
depths  of  his  being,  and  the  poems  in  which  it  found 
utterance,  whatever  their  purely  literary  qualities,  have 
at  least  the  value  of  a  first-hand  human  document,  the 
sincere  self-portraiture  of  a  vivid  and  virile  soul. 

There  are  three  more  or  less  clearly-marked  elements 
in  a  poet's  equipment — observation,  passion,  reflection, 
or  in  simpler  terms,  seeing,  feeling  and  thinking.  The 
first  two  are  richly  represented  in  the  following  poems, 
the  third,  as  was  natural,  much  less  so.  The  poet  was 
too  fully  occupied  in  garnering  impressions  and  experi 
ences  to  think  of  co-ordinating  and  interpreting  them. 
That  would  have  come  later;  and  later,  too,  would  have 
come  a  general  deepening  of  the  spiritual  content  of  his 
work.  There  had  been  nothing  in  either  his  outward  or 
his  inward  life  that  could  fairly  be  called  suffering  or 
struggle.  He  had  not  sounded  the  depths  of  human  ex 
perience,  which  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  neither  had  he 
risen  to  the  heights.  This  he  no  doubt  recognised  him 
self,  and  was  not  thinking  merely  of  the  date  of  compo 
sition  when  he  called  his  pre-war  poems  "Juvenilia." 
Great  emotions,  and  perhaps  great  sorrows,  would  have 
come  to  him  in  due  time,  and  would  have  deepened  and 
enriched  his  vein  of  song.  The  first  great  emotion  which 
found  him,  when  he  rallied  to  the  trumpet-call  of  France 

xiv 


and  freedom,  did,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  lend  new  reality 
and  poignancy  to  his  verse;  but  the  soldier's  life  left  him 
small  leisure  for  composition.  We  must  regard  his 
work,  then,  as  a  fragment,  a  mere  foretaste  of  what  he 
might  have  achieved  had  his  life  been  prolonged.  But, 
devoted  though  he  was  to  his  art,  he  felt  that  to  live 
greatly  is  better  than  to  write  greatly.  The  unfulfilment 
of  his  poetic  hopes  and  dreams  meant  the  fulfilment  of  a 
higher  ambition. 

Alan  Seeger  was  born  in  New  York  on  June  22nd,  1888. 
His  father  and  his  mother  belonged  to  old  New  England 
families. 

When  he  was  a  year  old  his  parents  removed  to  Staten 
Island,  which  forms,  as  it  were,  the  stopper  to  the  bottle 
of  New  York  harbour.  There  he  remained  until  his 
tenth  year,  growing  up  along  with  a  brother  and  a  sister, 
the  one  a  little  older,  the  other  a  little  younger,  than  him 
self.  From  their  home  on  the  heights  of  Staten  Island, 
the  children  looked  out  day  by  day  upon  one  of  the  most 
romantic  scenes  in  the  world — the  gateway  to  the  West 
ern  Hemisphere.  They  could  see  the  great  steamships 
of  all  the  nations  threading  then*  way  through  the  Nar 
rows  and  passing  in  procession  up  the  glorious  expanse  of 
New  York  Bay,  to  which  the  incessant  local  traffic  of 
tug-boats,  river  steamers  and  huge  steam-ferries  lent  an 
ever-shifting  animation.  In  the  foreground  lay  Robbins 
Reef  Lighthouse,  in  the  middle  distance  the  Statue  of 
Liberty,  in  the  background  the  giant  curves  of  Brooklyn 
Bridge,  and,  range  over  range,  the  mountainous  buildings 
of  "down  town"  New  York — not  then  as  colossal  as  they 
are  to-day,  but  already  unlike  anything  else  under  the 
sun.  And  the  incoming  stream  of  tramps  and  liners  met 
the  outgoing  stream  which  carried  the  imagination  sea- 

xv 


ward,  to  the  islands  of  the  buccaneers,  and  the  haunts  of 
all  the  heroes  and  villains  of  history,  in  the  Old  World. 
The  children  did  not  look  with  incurious  eyes  upon  this 
stirring  scene.  They  knew  the  names  of  all  the  great 
European  liners  and  of  the  warships  passing  to  and  from 
the  Navy  Yard;  and  the  walls  of  their  nursery  were 
covered  with  their  drawings  of  the  shipping,  rude  enough, 
no  doubt,  but  showing  accurate  observation  of  such  de 
tails  as  funnels,  masts  and  rigging.  They  were  of  an  age, 
before  they  left  Staten  Island,  to  realize  something  of  the 
historic  implications  of  their  environment. 

In  1898  the  family  returned  to  New  York,  and  there 
Alan  continued  at  the  Horace  Mann  School  the  educa 
tion  begun  at  the  Staten  Island  Academy.  The  great 
delight  of  the  ten-year-old  schoolboy  was  to  follow  the 
rushing  fire-engines  which  were  an  almost  daily  feature 
in  the  life  of  the  New  York  streets.  Even  in  manhood 
he  could  never  resist  the  lure  of  the  fire-alarm. 

Two  years  later  (1900)  came  a  new  migration,  which 
no  doubt  exercised  a  determining  influence  on  the  boy's 
development.  The  family  removed  to  Mexico,  and  there 
Alan  spent  a  great  part  of  the  most  impressionable  years 
of  his  youth.  If  New  York  embodies  the  romance  of 
Power,  Mexico  represents  to  perfection  the  romance  of 
Picturesqueness.  To  pass  from  the  United  States  to 
Mexico  is  like  passing  at  one  bound  from  the  New  World 
to  the  Old.  Wherever  it  has  not  been  recently  Amer 
icanized,  its  beauty  is  that  of  sunbaked,  somnolent  decay. 
It  is  in  many  ways  curiously  like  its  mother — or  rather 
its  step-mother — country,  Spain.  But  Spain  can  show 
nothing  to  equal  the  spacious  magnificence  of  its  scenery 
or  the  picturesqueness  of  its  physiognomies  and  its  cos 
tumes.  And  then  it  is  the  scene  of  the  most  fascinating 
adventure  recorded  in  history — an  exploit  which  puts  to 


xvi 


shame  the  imagination  of  the  greatest  masters  of  romance. 
It  is  true  that  the  Mexico  City  of  to-day  shows  scanty 
traces  (except  in  its  Museum)  of  the  Tenochtitlan  of 
Montezuma;  but  the  vast  amphitheatre  on  which  it 
stands  is  still  wonderfully  impressive,  and  still  the  great 
silver  cones  of  Popocatepetl  and  Ixtaccihuatl  look  down 
upon  it  from  their  immaculate  altitudes. 

Though  well  within  the  tropics,  the  great  elevation  of 
the  city  (7400  feet)  renders  its  climate  very  attractive  to 
those  for  whom  height  has  no  terrors;  and  the  Seegers  soon 
became  greatly  attached  to  it.  For  two  very  happy  years, 
it  was  the  home  of  the  whole  family.  The  children  had 
a  tutor  whom  they  respected  and  loved,  and  who  helped 
to  develop  their  taste  for  poetry  and  good  literature. 
"One  of  our  keenest  pleasures,"  writes  one  of  the  family, 
"was  to  go  in  a  body  to  the  old  book-shops,  and  on  Sun 
day  morning  to  the  *  Thieves  Market,'  to  rummage  for 
treasures;  and  many  were  the  Elzevirs  and  worm-eaten, 
vellum-bound  volumes  from  the  old  convent  libraries  that 
fell  into  our  hands.  At  that  time  we  issued  a  home 
magazine  called  The  Prophet,  in  honour  of  a  large  painting 
that  we  had  acquired  and  chose  to  consider  as  the  patron 
of  our  household.  The  magazine  was  supposed  to  ap 
pear  monthly,  but  was  always  months  behind  its  time. 
Alan  was  the  sporting  editor,  but  his  literary  ability  had 
even  then  begun  to  appear,  and  he  overstepped  his  de 
partment  with  contributions  of  poetry  and  lengthy  es 
says.  No  copies  of  this  famous  periodical  are  extant: 
they  all  went  down  in  the  wreck  of  the  Merida." 

In  the  chilly  days  of  winter,  frequent  visits  were  paid 
to  the  lower  levels  of  the  tierra  templada,  especially  to 
Cuernavaca,  one  of  the  "show"  places  of  the  country. 
The  children  learned  to  ride  and  to  cycle,  and  were  thus 
able  to  extend  their  excursions  on  all  sides.  When,  after 

xvii 


two  years,  they  went  back  to  the  United  States  to  school, 
they  were  already  familiar  with  Mexican  nature  and  life; 
and  they  kept  their  impressions  fresh  by  frequent  vacation 
visits.  It  must  have  been  a  delightful  experience  to  slip 
down  every  now  and  then  to  the  tropics:  first  to  pass  under 
the  pink  walls  of  Morro  Castle  into  the  wide  lagoon  of 
Havana;  then  to  cross  the  Spanish  Main  to  Vera  Cruz; 
then,  after  skirting  the  giant  escarpment  of  Orizaba,,  to 
crawl  zigzagging  up  the  almost  precipitous  ascent  that 
divides  the  tierra  templada  from  the  tierrafria;  and  finally 
to  speed  through  the  endless  agave-fields  of  the  upland 
haciendas,  to  Mexico  City  and  home. 

Mexico,  and  the  experiences  associated  with  it,  have 
left  deep  marks  on  Alan  Seeger's  poetry.  The  vacation 
voyages  thither  speak  in  this  apostrophe  from  the  "Ode 
to  Antares": 


Star  of  the  South  that  now  through  orient  mist 

At  nightfall  off  Tampico  or  Belize 

Greetest  the  sailor,  rising  from  those  seas 

Where  first  in  me,  a  fond  romanticist, 

The  tropic  sunset's  bloom  on  cloudy  piles 

Cast  out  industrious  cares  with  dreams  of  fabulous  isles.  ... 

The  longest  of  his  poems,  "The  Deserted  Garden"— 
a  veritable  gallery  of  imaginative  landscape — is  entirely 
Mexican  in  colouring.  Indeed  we  may  conjecture  with 
out  too  much  rashness  that  it  is  a  mere  expansion  of  the 
sonnet  entitled  "Tezcotzinco,"  the  fruit  of  a  solitary  ex 
cursion  to  the  ruins  of  Nezahualcoyotl's  baths,  in  the  hills 
beyond  Tezcoco.  But  even  where  there  is  no  painting  of 
definite  Mexican  scenes,  motives  from  the  vast  uplands 
with  their  cloud  pageantry,  and  from  the  palm-fringed, 
incandescent  coasts,  frequently  recur  in  his  verse.  For 

xviii 


instance,  he  had  not  forgotten  Mexico  when  he  wrote  in 
a  volume  of  the  Comtesse  de  Noailles: 

Be  my  companion  under  cool  arcades 
That  frame  some  drowsy  street  and  dazzling  square, 
Beyond  whose  flowers  and  palm-tree  promenades 
White  belfries  burn  in  the  blue  tropic  air. 

And  even  when  the  tropics  were  finally  left  behind,  he 
carried  with  him  in  his  memory  their  profusion  of  colour, 
an  ever-ready  palette  on  which  to  draw.  Assuredly  it 
was  a  fortunate  chance  that  took  this  lover  of  sunlight 
and  space  and  splendor,  in  his  most  receptive  years,  to 
regions  where  they  superabound.  Perhaps,  had  he  been 
confined  to  gloomier  climates,  he  could  not  have  written: 

From  a  boy 

I  gloated  on  existence.     Earth  to  me 
Seemed  all-sufficient,  and  my  sojourn  there 
One  trembling  opportunity  for  joy. 

But  the  same  good  fortune  pursued  him  throughout. 
He  seemed  predestined  to  environments  of  beauty.  When, 
at  fourteen,  he  left  his  Mexican  home,  it  was  to  go  to 
the  Hackley  School  at  Tarrytown,  N.  Y.,  an  institution 
placed  on  a  high  hill  overlooking  that  noblest  of  rivers, 
the  Hudson,  and  surrounded  by  a  domain  of  its  own,  ex 
tending  to  many  acres  of  meadow  and  woodland.  An 
attack  of  scarlet  fever  in  his  childhood  had  left  his  health 
far  from  robust,  and  it  was  thought  that  the  altitude  of 
Mexico  City  wras  too  great  for  him.  He  therefore  spent 
one  of  his  vacations  among  the  hills  of  New  Hampshire, 
and  was  afterwards  given  a  year  out  of  school,  with  the 
family  of  his  former  tutor,  in  Southern  California — again 
a  region  famed  for  its  beauty.  He  returned  much  im- 

xix 


proved  in  health,  and  after  a  concluding  year  at  Hackley, 
he  entered  Harvard  College  in  1906. 

He  now  plunged  into  wide  and  miscellaneous  reading, 
both  at  Harvard,  and  at  the  magnificent  Boston  Library. 
During  his  first  two  years  at  college,  his  bent  seemed  to 
lie  rather  towards  the  studious  and  contemplative  than 
towards  the  active  life.  His  brother,  at  this  time,  ap 
peared  to  him  to  be  of  a  more  pleasure-loving  and  ad 
venturous  disposition;  and  there  exists  a  letter  to  his 
mother  hi  which,  after  contrasting,  with  obvious  allusion 
to  Chaucer's  "Prologue/*  the  mediaeval  ideals  of  the 
Knight  and  the  Clerk,  he  adds:  "C.  is  the  Knight  and  I 
the  Clerk,  deriving  more  keen  pleasure  from  the  perusal 
of  a  musty  old  volume  than  in  pursuing  adventure  out  in 
the  world."  But  about  the  middle  of  his  Harvard  career, 
a  marked  change  came  over  his  habits  of  thought  and  of 
action.  He  emerged  from  his  shell,  made  many  friends, 
and  threw  himself  with  great  zest  into  the  social  life  of 
his  comrades.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  this  did  not 
mean  any  slackening  in  his  literary  interests.  His  work 
gives  ample  proof  of  real,  if  not  of  systematic,  culture. 
He  genuinely  loves  and  has  made  his  own  many  of  the 
great  things  of  the  past.  His  translations  from  Dante 
and  Ariosto,  for  example,  show  no  less  sympathy  than 
accomplishment.  Very  characteristic  is  his  selection  of 
the  Twenty-sixth  Canto  of  the  Inferno,  in  which  the  nar 
rative  of  Ulysses  brings  with  it  a  breath  from  the  great 
romance  of  the  antique  world.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
before  he  graduated  he  took  up  with  zeal  and  with  dis 
tinction  the  study  of  Keltic  literature — a  corrective,  per 
haps,  in  its  cooler  tones,  to  the  tropical  motives  with 
which  his  mind  was  stored.  He  was  one  of  the  editors  of 
the  Harvard  Monthly,  to  which  he  made  frequent  contri 
butions  of  verse. 

XX 


There  followed  two  years  (1910-12)  in  New  York— 
probably  the  least  satisfactory  years  of  his  life.  The 
quest  of  beauty  is  scarcely  a  profession,  and  it  caused  his 
parents  some  concern  to  find  him  pausing  irresolute  on 
the  threshold  of  manhood,  instead  of  setting  himself  a 
goal  and  bracing  his  energies  for  its  achievement.  In 
1911  his  mother  and  sister  left  Mexico,  a  week  or  two 
before  Porfirio  Diaz  made  his  exit,  and  the  Maderists 
entered  the  capital.  They  returned  to  New  York,  to 
find  Alan  still  unsettled,  and  possessed  with  the  thought, 
or  perhaps  rather  the  instinct,  that  the  life  he  craved  for 
was  not  to  be  found  in  America,  but  awaited  him  in 
Europe.  In  the  following  year  he  carried  his  point,  and 
set  off  for  Paris — a  departure  which  may  fairly  be  called 
his  Hegira,  the  turning-point  of  his  history.  That  it 
shortened  his  span  there  can  be  little  doubt.  Had  he 
settled  down  to  literary  work,  in  his  native  city,  he  might 
have  lived  to  old  age.  But  it  secured  him  four  years  of 
the  tense  and  poignant  joy  of  living  on  which  his  heart 
was  set;  and  during  two  of  these  years  the  joy  was  of  3 
kind  which  absolved  him  for  ever  from  the  reproach  of 
mere  hedonism  and  self-indulgence.  He  would  certainly 
have  said — or  rather  he  was  continually  saying,  in  words 
full  of  passionate  conviction — 

One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name. 

It  was  in  the  spirit  of  a  romanticist  of  the  eighteen- 
forties  that  he  plunged  into  the  life  of  Paris.  He  had  a 
room  near  the  Muse"e  de  Cluny,  and  he  found  himself 
thoroughly  at  home  among  the  artists  and  students  of 
the  Latin  Quarter,  though  he  occasionally  varied  the  Vie 
de  Boheme  by  excursions  into  "society"  of  a  more  ortho- 

xxi 


dox  type.  Paris  has  had  many  lovers,  but  few  more  de 
voted  than  Alan  Seeger.  He  accepted  the  life  of  "die 
singende,  springende,  schone  Paris"  with  a  curious  whole- 
heartedness.  Here  and  there  we  find  evidence — for  in 
stance,  in  the  first  two  sonnets — that  he  was  not  blind 
to  its  seamy  side.  But  on  the  whole  he  appears  to  have 
seen  beauty  even  in  aspects  of  it  for  which  it  is  almost 
as  difficult  to  find  aesthetic  as  moral  justification.  The 
truth  is,  no  doubt,  that  the  whole  spectacle  was  plunged 
for  him  in  the  glamour  of  romance.  Paris  did  not  be 
long  to  the  working-day  world,  but  was  like  Bagdad  or 
Samarcand,  a  city  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  How  his 
imagination  transfigured  it  we  may  see  in  such  a  passage 
as  this: 

By  silvery  waters  in  the  plains  afar 

Glimmers  the  inland  city  like  a  star, 

With  gilded  gates  and  sunny  spires  ablaze, 

And  burnished  domes  half  seen  through  luminous  haze. 

Lo,  with  what  opportunity  earth  teems ! 

How  Like  a  fair  its  ample  beauty  seems ! 

Fluttering  with  flags  its  proud  pavilions  rise: 

What  bright  bazaars,  what  marvellous  merchandise, 

Down  seething  alleys  what  melodious  din, 

What  clamor,  importuning  from  every  booth: 

At  Earth's  great  mart  where  Joy  is  trafficked  in 

Buy  while  thy  purse  yet  swells  with  golden  Youth ! 

Into  this  fair  he  sallied  forth,  not  as  one  to  the  manner 
born,  but  with  the  eagerness  of  a  traveller  from  a  far 
country,  who  feels  as  though  he  were  living  in  a  dream. 
His  attitude  to  the  whole  experience  is  curiously  in 
genuous,  but  perfectly  sane  and  straightforward.  It  is 
the  Paris  of  Murger  in  which  he  lives,  not  the  Paris  of 
Baudelaire  and  the  Second  Empire.  He  takes  his  ex- 

xxii 


periences  lightly.  There  is  no  sign  either  of  any  struggle 
of  the  soul  or  of  any  very  rending  tempest  of  the  heart. 
There  is  no  posing,  self-conscious  Byronism,  nor  any  of 
that  morbid  dallying  with  the  idea  of  "sin"  which  gives 
such  an  unpleasant  flavor  to  a  good  deal  of  romantic 
poetry,  both  French  and  English.  There  are  traces  of 
disappointment  and  disillusion,  but  they  are  accepted 
without  a  murmur  as  inevitable  incidents  of  a  great, 
absorbing  experience.  All  this  means,  of  course,  that 
there  is  no  tragic  depth,  and  little  analytic  subtlety,  in 
these  poems.  They  are  the  work  of  a  young  man  enam 
oured  of  his  youth,  enthusiastically  grateful  for  the  gift 
of  life,  and  entirely  at  his  ease  within  his  own  moral  code. 
He  had  known  none  of  what  he  himself  calls  "that  kind 
of  affliction  which  alone  can  unfold  the  profundities  of 
the  human  spirit." 

It  was  in  Paris  that  he  produced  most  of  the  "Juve 
nilia."  He  included  only  a  few  of  the  pieces  which  he  had 
written  at  Harvard  and  in  New  York.  Thus  all,  or  nearly 
all,  the  poems  ranged  under  that  title,  are,  as  he  said — 

Relics  of  the  time  when  I  too  fared 
Across  the  sweet  fifth  lustrum  of  my  days. 

Paris,  however,  did  not  absorb  him  entirely  during 
these  years.  He  would  occasionally  set  forth  on  long 
tramps  through  the  French  provinces ;  for  he  loved  every 
aspect  of  that  gracious  country.  He  once  spent  some 
weeks  with  a  friend  in  Switzerland;  but  this  experience 
geems  to  have  left  no  trace  in  his  work. 

Then  came  the  fateful  year  1914.  His  "Juvenilia" 
having  grown  to  a  passable  bulk,  he  brought  them  in  the 
early  summer  to  London,  with  a  view  to  finding  a  publisher 

xxiii 


for  them;  but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  took  any  very 
active  steps  to  that  effect.  His  days  were  mainly  spent 
in  the  British  Museum,  and  his  evenings  with  a  coterie  of 
friends  at  the  Caf6  Royal.  In  the  middle  of  July,  his 
father  came  to  England  and  spent  a  week  with  him.  Of 
this  meeting  Mr.  Seeger  writes: 

We  passed  three  days  at  Canterbury — three  days  of  such  in 
timacy  as  we  had  hardly  had  since  he  was  a  boy  in  Mexico. 
For  four  or  five  years  I  had  only  seen  him  a  few  days  at  a  time, 
during  my  hurried  visits  to  the  United  States.  We  explored 
the  old  town  together,  heard  services  in  the  Cathedral,  and  had 
long  talks  in  the  close.  After  service  in  the  Cathedral  on  a 
Monday  morning,  the  last  of  our  stay  at  Canterbury,  Alan  was 
particularly  enthusiastic  over  the  reading  of  the  Psalms,  and 
said  "Was  there  ever  such  English  written  as  that  of  the  Bible  ? " 
I  said  good-bye  to  Alan  on  July  25th. 

Two  days  earlier,  the  Austrian  Ultimatum  had  been 
presented  to  Serbia;  on  that  very  day  the  time  limit 
expired,  the  Serbian  reply  was  rejected,  and  the  Austrian 
Minister  left  Belgrade.  The  wheels  of  fate  were  already 
whirling. 

As  soon  as  it  became  evident  that  a  European  war  was 
inevitable  Alan  returned  to  Paris.  He  took  Bruges  on 
his  way,  and  there  left  the  manuscript  of  his  poems  in 
the  keeping  of  a  printer,  not  foreseeing  the  risks  to  which 
he  was  thus  exposing  them. 

The  war  was  not  three  weeks  old  when,  along  with  forty 
or  fifty  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  he  enlisted  in  the  Foreign 
Legion  of  France.  Why  did  he  take  this  step  ?  Funda 
mentally,  no  doubt,  because  he  felt  war  to  be  one  of  the 
supreme  experiences  of  life,  from  which,  when  it  offered 
itself,  he  could  not  shrink  without  disloyalty  to  his  ideal. 

xxiv 


Long  before  the  war  was  anything  more  than  a  vague 
possibility,  he  had  imagined  the  time 

.  .  .  when  courted  Death  shall  claim  my  limbs  and  find  them 
Laid  in  some  desert  place  alone,  or  where  the  tides 

Of  war's  tumultuous  waves  on  the  wet  sands  behind  them 
Leave  rifts  of  gasping  life  when  their  red  flood  subsides. 

So  far  back  indeed  as  May,  1912,  he  had  written  to  his 
mother  from  Paris:  "Is  it  not  fine  the  way  the  Balkan 
States  are  triumphing  ?  I  have  been  so  excited  over  the 
war,  it  would  have  needed  a  very  small  opportunity  to 
have  taken  me  over  there."  It  is  evident,  then,  that  the 
soldier's  life  had  long  been  included  among  the  possibil 
ities  which  fascinated  him.  But  apart  from  this  general 
proclivity  to  adventure,  this  desire  to  "live  dangerously," 
he  was  impelled  by  a  simple  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the 
country  and  city  of  his  heart,  which  he  himself  explained 
in  a  letter  written  from  the  Aisne  trenches  to  The  New 
Republic  (New  York,  May  22,  1915) : 

I  have  talked  with  so  many  of  the  young  volunteers  here. 
Their  case  is  little  known,  even  by  the  French,  yet  altogether 
interesting  and  appealing.  They  are  foreigners  on  whom  the 
outbreak  of  war  laid  no  formal  compulsion.  But  they  had 
stood  on  the  butte  in  springtime  perhaps,  as  Julian  and  Louise 
stood,  and  looked  out  over  the  myriad  twinkling  lights  of  the 
beautiful  city.  Paris — mystic,  maternal,  personified,  to  whom 
they  owed  the  happiest  moments  of  their  lives — Paris  was  in 
peril.  Were  they  not  under  a  moral  obligation,  no  less  bind 
ing  than  [that  by  which]  their  comrades  were  bound  legally,  to 
put  their  breasts  between  her  and  destruction?  Without  re 
nouncing  their  nationality,  they  had  yet  chosen  to  make  their 
homes  here  beyond  any  other  city  in  the  world.  Did  not  the 
benefits  and  blessings  they  had  received  point  them  a  duty 
that  heart  and  conscience  could  not  deny  ? 

XXV 


"Why  did  you  enlist?"  In  every  case  the  answer  was  the 
same.  That  memorable  day  in  August  came.  Suddenly  the 
old  haunts  were  desolate,  the  boon  companions  had  gone.  It 
was  unthinkable  to  leave  the  danger  to  them  and  accept  only 
the  pleasures  oneself,  to  go  on  enjoying  the  sweet  things  of  life 
in  defence  of  which  they  were  perhaps  even  then  shedding  their 
blood  in  the  north.  Some  day  they  would  return,  and  with 
honor — not  all,  but  some.  The  old  order  of  things  would  have 
irrevocably  vanished.  There  would  be  a  new  companionship 
whose  bond  would  be  the  common  danger  run,  the  common 
sufferings  borne,  the  common  glory  shared.  "And  where  have 
you  been  all  the  time,  and  what  have  you  been  doing?"  The 
very  question  would  be  a  reproach,  though  none  were  intended. 
How  could  they  endure  it  ? 

Face  to  face  with  a  situation  like  that,  a  man  becomes  rec 
onciled,  justifies  easily  the  part  he  is  playing,  and  comes  to 
understand,  in  a  universe  where  logic  counts  for  so  little  and 
sentiment  and  the  impulse  of  the  heart  for  so  much,  the^inevita- 
bleness  and  naturalness  of  war.  Suddenly  the  world  is  up  in 
arms.  All  mankind  takes  sides.  The  same  faith  that  made  him 
surrender  himself  to  the  impulses  of  normal  living  and  of  love, 
forces  him  now  to  make  himself  the  instrument  through  which 
a  greater  force  works  out  its  inscrutable  ends  through  the  im 
pulses  of  terror  and  repulsion.  And  with  no  less  a  sense  of 
moving  in  harmony  with  a  universe  where  masses  are  in  con 
tinual  conflict  and  new  combinations  are  engendered  out  of 
eternal  collisions,  he  shoulders  arms  and  marches  forth  with 
haste. 

Already  in  this  passage  we  can  discern  the  fatalistic 
acceptance  of  war  which  runs  through  many  of  his  utter 
ances  on  the  subject,  and  may  be  read  especially  in  the 
noble  conclusion  of  his  poem,  "The  Hosts:" 

There  was  a  stately  drama  writ 

By  the  hand  that  peopled  the  earth  and  air 

And  set  the  stars  in  the  infinite 

xxvi 


And  made  night  gorgeous  and  morning  fair; 

And  all  that  had  sense  to  reason  knew 

That  bloody  drama  must  be  gone  through. 

Some  sat  and  watched  how  the  action  veered — 

Waited,  profited,  trembled,  cheered — 

We  saw  not  clearly  nor  understood, 

But,  yielding  ourselves  to  the  master  hand, 

Each  in  his  part,  as  best  he  could, 

We  played  it  through  as  the  author  planned. 

It  was  not,  in  his  own  conception,  a  "war  against  war" 
He  was  waging;  it  was  simply  a  fight  for  freedom 
and  for  France.  Some  of  us  may  hope  and  believe  that, 
in  after  years,  when  he  was  at  leisure  to  view  history  in 
perspective  and  carry  his  psychology  a  little  deeper,  he 
would  have  allowed,  if  not  more  potency,  at  any  rate 
more  adaptability,  to  the  human  will.  In  order  to  do 
so,  it  would  not  have  been  necessary  to  abandon  his  fatal 
istic  creed.  He  would  have  seen,  perhaps,  that  even  if 
we  only  will  what  we  have  to  will,  the  factors  which  shape 
the  will — of  the  individual,  the  nation,  or  the  race — are 
always  changing,  and  that  it  is  not  only  possible  but  prob 
able  that  the  factors  which  make  for  peace  may  one  day 
gain  the  upper  hand  of  those  which  (for  perfectly  definite 
and  tangible  reasons)  have  hitherto  made  for  war.  The 
fact  remains,  however,  that  he  shouldered  his  knapsack 
without  any  theoretic  distaste  for  the  soldier's  calling. 
In  so  far  he  was  more  happily  situated  than  thousands 
who  have  made  all  the  better  soldiers  for  their  intense 
detestation  of  the  stupidity  of  war.  But  this  in  no  way 
detracts  from  his  loyalty  to  his  personal  ideal,  or  from  the 
high  chivalry  of  his  devotion  to  France. 

The  story  of  his  life  as  a  soldier  shall  be  told,  so  far 
as  possible,  in  his  own  words. 

After  some  brief  preliminary  training  at  Rouen  he  was 

xxvii 


sent  to  Toulouse.     Thence,  on  September  28,  1914,  he 
wrote  as  follows: 

2me  Regiment  Etranger, 
Bataillon  C.,  Ire.  Cie,  3me  Section. 

TOULOUSE,  Sept.  28,  1914. 
DEAR  MOTHER, 

.  .  .  We  have  been  putting  in  our  time  here  at  very  hard 
drilling,  and  are  supposed  to  have  learned  in  six  weeks  what 
the  ordinary  recruit,  in  times  of  peace,  takes  all  his  two  years 
at.  We  rise  at  5,  and  work  stops  in  the  afternoon  at  5.  A 
twelve  hours  day  at  one  sou  a  day.  I  hope  to  earn  higher  wages 
than  this  in  time  to  come,  but  I  never  expect  to  work  harder. 
The  early  rising  hour  is  splendid  for  it  gives  one  the  chance  to 
see  the  most  beautiful  part  of  these  beautiful  autumn  days  in 
the  South.  We  march  up  to  a  lovely  open  field  on  the  end  of 
the  ridge  behind  the  barracks,  walking  right  into  the  rising  sun. 
From  this  the  panorama,  spread  about  on  three  sides  is  incom 
parably  fine — yellow  cornfields,  vineyards,  harvest-fields  where 
the  workers  and  their  teams  can  be  seen  moving  about  in  tiny 
figures — poplars,  little  hamlets  and  church- towers,  and  far 
away  to  the  south  the  blue  line  of  the  Pyrenees,  the  high  peaks 
capped  with  snow.  It  makes  one  in  love  with  life,  it  is  all  so 
peaceful  and  beautiful.  But  Nature  to  me  is  not  only  hills  and 
blue  skies  and  flowers,  but  the  Universe,  the  totality  of  things, 
reality  as  it  most  obviously  presents  itself  to  us;  and  in  this 
universe  strife  and  sternness  play  as  big  a  part  as  love  and  ten 
derness,  and  cannot  be  shirked  by  one  whose  will  it  is  to  rule  his 
life  in  accordance  with  the  cosmic  forces  he  sees  in  play  about 
him.  I  hope  you  see  the  thing  as  I  do,  and  think  that  I  have 
done  well,  being  without  responsibilities  and  with  no  one  to 
suffer  materially  by  my  decision,  in  taking  upon  my  shoulders, 
too,  the  burden  that  so  much  of  humanity  is  suffering  under, 
and,  rather  than  stand  ingloriously  aside  when  the  opportunity 
was  given  me,  doing  my  share  for  the  side  that  I  think  right.  .  .  . 

The  battalion  must  have  left  Toulouse  almost  immedi 
ately  after  this  was  written,  for  in  a  post-card  of  October 

xxviii 


10,  from  the  Camp  de  Mailly,  Aube,  he  says  that  they 
have  been  there  ten  days.  A  week  later  he  wrote: 

.  .  .  After  two  weeks  here  and  less  than  two  months  from  en 
listment,  we  are  actually  going  at  last  to  the  firing  line.  By 
the  time  you  receive  this  we  shall  already  perhaps  have  had 
our  bapteme  de  feu.  We  have  been  engaged  in  the  hardest  kind 
of  hard  work — two  weeks  of  beautiful  autumn  weather  on  the 
whole,  frosty  nights  and  sunny  days  and  beautiful  coloring  on 
the  sparse  foliage  that  breaks  here  and  there  the  wide  rolling 
expanses  of  open  country.  Every  day,  from  the  distance  to 
the  north,  has  come  the  booming  of  the  cannon  around  Reims 
and  the  lines  along  the  Meuse.  .  .  .  But  imagine  how  thrill 
ing  it  will  be  tomorrow  and  the  following  days,  marching  toward 
the  front  with  the  noise  of  battle  growing  continually  louder 
before  us.  I  could  tell  you  where  we  are  going,  but  I  do  not 
want  to  run  any  risk  of  having  this  letter  stopped  by  the  cen 
sor.  The  whole  regiment  is  going,  four  battalions,  about  4000 
men.  You  have  no  idea  how  beautiful  it  is  to  see  the  troops 
undulating  along  the  road  in  front  of  one,  in  colonnes  par  quatre 
as  far  as  the  eye  can  see,  with  the  captains  and  lieutenants  on 
horseback  at  the  head  of  their  companies.  .  .  .  Tomorrow  the 
real  hardship  and  privations  begin.  But  I  go  into  action  with 
the  lightest  of  light  hearts.  The  hard  work  and  moments  of 
frightful  fatigue  have  not  broken  but  hardened  me,  and  I  am 
in  excellent  health  and  spirits.  ...  I  am  happy  and  full  of 
excitement  over  the  wonderful  days  that  are  ahead.  It  was 
such  a  comfort  to  receive  your  letter,  and  know  that  you  ap 
proved  of  my  action. 

In  a  post-card  of  October  20,  postmarked  "  Vertus,"  he 
says: 

This  is  the  second  night's  halt  of  our  march  to  the  front. 
All  our  way  has  been  one  immense  battlefield.  It  was  a  mag 
nificent  victory  for  the  French  that  the  world  does  not  fully 
realize.  I  think  we  are  marching  to  victory  too,  but  whatever 
we  are  going  to  we  are  going  triumphantly. 

xxix 


On  October  23,  he  writes  from  "  17  kil.  south-east  of 
Reims." 

DEAR  MOTHER.  ...  I  am  sitting  on  the  curbstone  of  a  street 
at  the  edge  of  the  town.  The  houses  end  abruptly  and  the  yel 
low  vineyards  begin  here.  The  view  is  broad  and  uninterrupted 
to  the  crest  ten  kilometers  or  so  across  the  valley.  Between 
this  and  ourselves  are  the  lines  of  the  two  armies.  A  fierce  can 
nonading  is  going  on  continually,  and  I  lift  my  eyes  from  the 
sheet  at  each  report,  to  see  the  puffs  of  smoke  two  or  three  miles 
off.  The  Germans  have  been  firing  salvoes  of  four  shots  over 
a  little  village  where  the  French  batteries  are  stationed,  shrapnel 
that  burst  in  little  puffs  of  white  smoke;  the  French  reply  with 
explosive  shells  that  raise  columns  of  dust  over  the  German 
lines.  Half  of  our  regiment  have  left  already  for  the  trenches. 
We  may  go  tonight.  We  have  made  a  march  of  about  75  kilo 
meters  in  four  days,  and  are  now  on  the  front,  ready  to  be  called 
on  at  any  moment.  I  am  feeling  fine,  in  my  element,  for  I  have 
always  thirsted  for  this  kind  of  thing,  to  be  present  always 
where  the  pulsations  are  liveliest.  Every  minute  here  is  worth 
weeks  of  ordinary  experience.  How  beautiful  the  view  is  here, 
over  the  sunny  vineyards !  And  what  a  curious  anomaly.  On 
this  slope  the  grape  pickers  are  singing  merrily  at  their  work, 
on  the  other  the  batteries  are  roaring.  Boom !  Boom ! 

This  will  spoil  one  for  any  other  kind  of  life.  The  yellow 
afternoon  sunlight  is  sloping  gloriously  across  this  beautiful 
valley  of  Champagne.  Aeroplanes  pass  continually  overhead 
on  reconnaissance.  I  must  mail  this  now.  There  is  too  much 
to  be  said  and  too  little  time  to  say  it.  So  glad  to  get  your 
letter.  Love  and  lots  of  it  to  all. 

ALAN. 

Alas!  the  hopes  of  swift,  decisive  action  with  which 
the  Legion  advanced  were  destined  to  disappointment. 
They  soon  settled  down  for  the  winter  into  the  monoto 
nous  hardships  of  trench  warfare.  Alan  described  this 
experience  in  admirably  vivid  letters  published  in  the 

XXX 


New  York  Sun,  from  which  a  few  extracts  must  suffice. 
He  writes  on  December  8,  during  his  fourth  period  of 
service  in  the  trenches: 

We  left  our  camp  in  the  woods  before  daybreak  this  morn 
ing,  and  marched  up  the  hill  in  single  file,  under  the  winter 
stars.  .  .  .  Through  openings  in  the  woods  we  could  see  that 
we  were  marching  along  a  high  ridge,  and  on  either  hand  vapor 
ous  depths  and  distances  expanded,  the  darkness  broken  some 
times  by  a  far  light  or  the  momentary  glow  of  a  magnesium 
rocket  sent  up  from  the  German  lines.  There  is  something 
fascinating  if  one  is  stationed  on  sentry-duty  immediately  after 
arrival,  hi  watching  the  dawn  slowly  illumine  one  of  these  new 
landscapes,  from  a  position  taken  up  under  cover  of  darkness. 
The  other  section  has  been  relieved  and  departs.  We  are  given 
the  consigne,  by  the  preceding  sentinel,  and  are  left  alone  behind 
a  mound  of  dirt,  facing  the  north  and  the  blank,  perilous  night. 
Slowly  the  mystery  that  it  shrouds  resolves  as  the  grey  light 
steals  over  the  eastern  hills.  Like  a  photograph  in  the  wash 
ing,  its  high  lights  and  shadows  come  gradually  forth.  The 
light  splash  in  the  foreground  becomes  a  ruined  chateau,  the 
grey  street  a  demolished  village. 

The  details  come  out  on  the  hillside  opposite,  where  the  silent 
trenches  of  the  enemy  are  hidden  a  few  hundred  metres  away. 
We  find  ourselves  in  a  woody,  mountainous  country,  with  broad 
horizons  and  streaks  of  mist  in  the  valleys.  Our  position  is 
excellent  this  time,  a  high  crest,  with  open  land  sloping  down 
from  the  trenches  and  plenty  of  barbed  wire  strung  along  im 
mediately  in  front.  It  would  be  a  hard  task  to  carry  such  a 
line,  and  there  is  not  much  danger  that  the  enemy  will  try. 

With  increasing  daylight  the  sentinel  takes  a  sheltered  posi 
tion,  and  surveys  his  new  environment  through  little  gaps 
where  the  mounds  have  been  crenellated  and  covered  with 
branches.  Suddenly  he  starts  as  a  metallic  bang  rings  out 
from  the  woods  immediately  behind  him.  It  is  of  the  unmis 
takable  voice  of  a  French  75  starting  the  day's  artillery  duel. 
By  the  time  the  sentinel  is  relieved,  in  broad  daylight,  the  can- 

xxxi 


nonade  is  general  all  along  the  line.  He  surrenders  his  post  to 
a  comrade,  and  crawls  down  into  his  bombproof  dugout  almost 
reluctantly,  for  the  long  day  of  inactive  waiting  has  commenced. 

Though  he  never  expresses  even  a  momentary  regret 
for  the  choice  he  has  made,  he  freely  admits  that  trench 
warfare  is  "anything  but  romantic."  For  the  artillery 
man  it  is  "doubtless  very  interesting"  but  "the  poor 
common  soldier"  has  a  pretty  mean  time  of  it: 

His  rule  is  simply  to  dig  himself  a  hole  in  the  ground  and  to 
keep  hidden  in  it  as  tightly  as  possible.  Continually  under 
the  fire  of  the  opposing  batteries,  he  is  yet  never  allowed  to  get 
a  glimpse  of  the  enemy.  Exposed  to  all  the  dangers  of  war, 
but  with  none  of  its  enthusiasm  or  splendid  6lan,  he  is  con 
demned  to  sit  like  an  animal  in  its  burrow,  and  hear  the  shells 
whistle  over  his  head,  and  take  their  little  daily  toll  from  his 
comrades. 

The  winter  morning  dawns  with  grey  skies  and  the  hoar  frost 
on  the  fields.  His  feet  are  numb,  his  canteen  frozen,  but  he  is 
not  allowed  to  make  a  fire.  The  winter  night  falls,  with  its 
prospect  of  sentry-duty,  and  the  continual  apprehension  of  the 
hurried  call  to  arms;  he  is  not  even  permitted  to  light  a  can 
dle,  but  must  fold  himself  in  his  blanket  and  lie  down  cramped 
in  the  dirty  straw  to  sleep  as  best  he  may.  How  different 
from  the  popular  notion  of  the  evening  campfire,  the  songs  and 
good  cheer. 

Of  the  commissariat  arrangements  he  gives,  on  the 
whole,  a  very  good  account;  but  he  admits  that  "to  sup 
plement  the  regular  rations  with  luxuries  such  as  butter, 
cheese,  preserves,  and  especially  chocolate,  is  a  matter  that 
occupies  more  of  the  young  soldier's  thoughts  than  the 
invisible  enemy.  Our  corporal  told  us  the  other  day  that 
there  wasn't  a  man  in  the  squad  that  wouldn't  exchange 
his  rifle  for  a  jar  of  jam."  But  "though  modern  warfare 

xxxii 


allows  us  to  think  more  about  eating  than  fighting,  still 
we  do  not  actually  forget  that  we  are  in  a  battle  line." 

Ever  over  our  heads  goes  on  the  precise  and  scientific  strug 
gle  of  the  artillery.  Packed  elbow  to  elbow  in  these  obscure 
galleries,  one  might  be  content  to  squat  all  day  long,  auditor 
of  the  magnificent  orchestra  of  battle,  were  it  not  that  one  be 
comes  so  soon  habituated  to  it  that  it  is  no  longer  magnificent. 
We  hear  the  voices  of  cannon  of  all  calibres  and  at  all  distances. 
We  learn  to  read  the  score  and  distinguish  the  instruments.  Near 
us  are  field  batteries;  far  away  are  siege  guns.  Over  all  there 
is  the  unmistakable,  sharp,  metallic  twang  of  the  French  75, 
the  whistle  of  its  shell  and  the  lesser  report  of  its  explosion. 

And  every  now  and  then  comes  the  bursting  of  a  shell 
immediately  overhead,  and  the  rattle  of  its  fragments  on 
the  roof  of  the  bomb-proof  dug-out.  Think  what  it  must 
have  meant  to  this  eager,  ardent,  pleasure-loving  spirit 
to  sit  out,  day  after  day,  in  a  chill,  sodden,  verminous 
trench,  a  grand  orchestral  concert  of  this  music  of  human 
madness ! 

The  solitude  of  sentry-duty  evidently  comes  to  him  as 
something  of  a  relief.  "It  may,"  he  says,  "be  all  that 
is  melancholy  if  the  night  is  bad  and  the  winter  wind 
moans  through  the  pines";  but  it  also  "brings  moments 
of  exaltation,  if  the  cloud-banks  roll  back,  if  the  moon 
light  breaks  over  the  windless  hills,  or  the  heavens  blaze 
with  the  beauty  of  the  northern  stars." 

The  sentinel  has  ample  time  for  reflection.  Alone  under  the 
stars,  war  in  its  cosmic  rather  than  its  moral  aspect  reveals 
itself  to  him.  .  .  .  He  thrills  with  the  sense  of  filling  an  ap 
pointed,  necessary  place  in  the  conflict  of  hosts,  and,  facing  the 
enemy's  crest,  above  which  the  Great  Bear  wheels  upward  to 
the  zenith,  he  feels,  with  a  sublimity  of  enthusiasm  that  he  has 
never  before  known,  a  kind  of  companionship  with  the  stars. 

xxxiii 


Six  days  in  the  trenches  alternated  with  a  three  days' 
interval  of  rest  "either  billeted  in  the  stables  and  hay 
lofts  of  the  village  or  encamped  in  the  woods  and  around 
the  chateau."  Thus  the  winter  of  1914-15  wore  away, 
with  little  to  break  its  monotony.  The  heaviest  fight 
ing  was  all  to  the  northward.  One  gathers  from  his  poem 
"The  Aisne"  that  at  Craonne  he  took  part  in  the  repulse 
of  a  serious  enemy  attack;  but  there  is  no  mention  of  this 
in  the  letters  before  me. 

On  March  12,  1915,  he  writes  to  his  mother  in  fierce 
indignation  over  something  that  has  appeared  in  an  Amer 
ican  paper  as  to  life  in  the  Foreign  Legion.  The  writer 
of  the  "disgraceful  article,"  he  says,  "like  many  others  of 
his  type,  was  long  ago  eliminated  from  our  ranks,  for  a 
person  buoyed  up  by  no  noble  purpose  is  the  first  to  suc 
cumb  to  the  hardships  of  the  winter  that  we  have  been 
through.  ...  If  his  lies  did  nothing  worse  than  belittle 
his  comrades,  who  are  here  for  motives  that  he  is  unable 
to  conceive,  it  would  be  only  dishonourable.  But  when 
it  comes  to  throwing  discredit  on  the  French  Govern 
ment,  that  in  all  its  treatment  of  us  has  been  generous 
beyond  anything  that  one  would  think  possible,  it  is  too 
shameful  for  any  words  to  characterize." 

With  the  coming  of  spring,  there  was  of  course  some 
mitigation  of  the  trials  of  the  winter.  Here  is  an  almost 
idyllic  passage  from  a  letter  to  his  sister,  written  on  the 
fly-leaves  of  Les  Confessions  de  J.  J.  Rousseau,  Geneve, 
MDCCLXXXII: 

We  put  in  a  very  pleasant  week  here — nine  hours  of  guard 
at  night  in  our  outposts  up  on  the  hillside;  in  the  daytime  sleep, 
or  foraging  in  the  ruined  villages,  loafing  in  the  pretty  garden 
of  the  chateau,  or  reading  up  in  the  library.  We  have  cleaned 
this  up  now,  and  it  is  an  altogether  curious  sensation  to  recline 
here  in  an  easy-chair,  reading  some  fine  old  book,  and  just  tak- 

xxxiv 


ing  the  precaution  not  to  stay  in  front  of  the  glassless  windows 
through  which  the  sharpshooters  can  snipe  at  you  from  their 
posts  in  the  thickets  on  the  slopes  of  the  plateau,  not  six  hun 
dred  metres  away.  Sometimes  our  artillery  opens  up  and  then 
you  lay  down  your  book  for  a  while,  and,  looking  through  a 
peek-hole,  watch  the  75 's  and  120's  throw  up  fountains  of  dirt 
and  debris  all  along  the  line  of  the  enemy's  trenches. 

"Spring  has  come  here  at  last,"  so  the  letter  closes, 
"and  we  are  having  beautiful  weather.  I  am  going  in 
swimming  in  the  Aisne  this  afternoon  for  the  first  time. 
In  fine  health  and  spirits." 

During  the  summer,  the  Legion  was  moved  about  a  good 
deal  from  sector  to  sector,  and  Alan  often  found  himself  in 
pleasant  places,  and  got  a  good  deal  of  positive  enjoyment 
out  of  his  life.  On  June  18, 1915,  he  wrote  to  his  mother: 

You  must  not  be  anxious  about  my  not  coming  back.  The 
chances  are  about  ten  to  one  that  I  will.  But  if  I  should  not, 
you  must  be  proud,  like  a  Spartan  mother,  and  feel  that  it  is 
your  contribution  to  the  triumph  of  the  cause  whose  righteous 
ness  you  feel  so  keenly.  Everybody  should  take  part  in  this 
struggle  which  is  to  have  so  decisive  an  effect,  not  only  on  the 
nations  engaged  but  on  all  humanity.  There  should  be  no 
neutrals,  but  everyone  should  bear  some  part  of  the  burden. 
If  so  large  a  part  should  fall  to  your  share,  you  would  be  in  so 
far  superior  to  other  women  and  should  be  correspondingly 
proud.  There  would  be  nothing  to  regret,  for  I  could  not  have 
done  otherwise  than  what  I  did,  and  I  think  I  could  not  have 
done  better.  Death  is  nothing  terrible  after  all.  It  may 
mean  something  even  more  wonderful  than  life.  It  cannot 
possibly  mean  anything  worse  to  the  good  soldier. 

The  same  note  recurs  in  a  letter  of  two  weeks  later 
(JulyS): 

Whether  I  am  on  the  winning  or  losing  side  is  not  the  point 
with  me:  it  is  being  on  the  side  where  my  sympathies  lie  that 

XXXV 


matters,  and  I  am  ready  to  see  it  through  to  the  end.  Success 
in  life  means  doing  that  thing  than  which  nothing  else  conceiv 
able  seems  more  noble  or  satisfying  or  remunerative,  and  this 
enviable  state  I  can  truly  say  that  I  enjoy,  for  had  I  the  choice 
I  would  be  nowhere  else  hi  the  world  than  where  I  am. 

In  this  letter  he  says  that  an  article  about  Rupert 
Brooke  in  which  his  name  was  mentioned  "gave  him 
rather  more  pain  than  pleasure,  for  it  rubbed  in  the 
matter  which  most  rankled  in  his  heart,  that  he  never 
could  get  his  book  of  poems  published  before  the  war." 
However  he  consoles  himself  with  the  reflection  that  the 
M.S.  is  probably  as  safe  at  Bruges  as  anywhere  else. 
"We  have  finished  our  eighth  month  on  the  firing  line," 
he  says,  "and  rumors  are  going  round  of  an  imminent  re 
turn  to  the  rear  for  reorganization." 

These  rumors  proved  to  be  well  founded,  and  on  July 
17,  he  wrote  on  a  picture-postcard  representing  the  Lion 
of  Belfort: 

We  have  finally  come  to  the  rear  for  a  little  rest  and  reor 
ganization,  and  are  cantoned  in  a  valley  not  far  from  Belfort, 
in  the  extreme  east  of  France,  very  near  the  Swiss  frontier. 
Since  I  wrote  you  last,  all  the  Americans  in  the  regiment  re 
ceived  48  hours  permission  in  Paris,  and  it  was  a  great  happi 
ness  to  get  back  even  for  so  short  a  while  and  to  see  again  old 
scenes  and  faces  after  almost  a  year's  absence.  We  shall  be 
here  several  weeks  perhaps. 

Three  weeks  later  (August  8)  he  wrote  to  his  mother: 

...  I  have  always  had  the  passion  to  play  the  biggest  part 
within  my  reach,  and  it  is  really  in  a  sense  a  supreme  success 
to  be  allowed  to  play  this.  If  I  do  not  come  out,  I  will  share 
the  good  fortune  of  those  who  disappear  at  the  pinnacle  of  their 
careers.  Come  to  love  France  and  understand  the  almost  un- 

xxxvi 


exampled  nobility  of  the  effort  this  admirable  people  is  making, 
for  that  will  be  the  surest  way  of  your  finding  comfort  for  any 
thing  that  I  am  ready  to  suffer  hi  their  cause. 

The  spell  of  rest  lasted  some  two  months,  and  then  the 
Legion  returned  to  the  front  in  time  for  the  battle  in 
Champagne  "in  which"  he  writes  "we  took  part  from  the 
beginning,  the  morning  of  the  memorable  25th.  Septem 
ber."  I  cannot  resist  quoting  at  some  length  from  the 
admirably  vivid  letter  in  which  he  gave  an  account  of  this 
experience : 

The  part  we  played  in  the  battle  is  briefly  as  follows.  We 
broke  camp  about  11  o'clock  the  night  of  the  24th,  and  marched 
up  through  ruined  Souain  to  our  place  in  one  of  the  numerous 
boyaux  where  the  troupes  d'attaque  were  massed.  The  cannon 
ade  was  pretty  violent  all  that  night,  as  it  had  been  for  several 
days  previous,  but  toward  dawn  it  reached  an  intensity  unim 
aginable  to  anyone  who  has  not  seen  a  modern  battle.  A  little 
before  9.15  the  fire  lessened  suddenly,  and  the  crackle  of  the 
fusillade  between  the  reports  of  the  cannon  told  us  that  the 
first  wave  of  assault  had  left  and  the  attack  begun.  At  the 
same  time  we  received  the  order  to  advance.  The  German 
artillery  had  now  begun  to  open  upon  us  in  earnest.  Amid 
the  most  infernal  roar  of  every  kind  of  fire-arms,  and  through 
an  atmosphere  heavy  with  dust  and  smoke,  we  marched  up 
through  the  boyaux  to  the  tranches  de  depart.  At  shallow 
places  and  over  breaches  that  shells  had  made  in  the  bank,  we 
caught  momentary  glimpses  of  the  blue  lines  sweeping  up  the 
hillside  or  silhouetted  on  the  crest  where  they  poured  into  the 
German  trenches.  When  the  last  wave  of  the  Colonial  brigade 
had  left,  we  followed.  Bayonette  au  canon,  in  lines  of  tirail 
leurs,  we  crossed  the  open  space  between  the  lines,  over  the 
barbed  wire,  where  not  so  many  of  our  men  were  lying  as  I  had 
feared,  (thanks  to  the  efficacy  of  the  bombardment)  and  over 
the  German  trench,  knocked  to  pieces  and  filled  with  their 
dead.  In  some  places  they  still  resisted  in  isolated  groups. 

xxxvii 


Opposite  us,  all  was  over,  and  the  herds  of  prisoners  were  being 
already  led  down  as  we  went  up.  We  cheered,  more  in  triumph 
than  hi  hate;  but  the  poor  devils,  terror-stricken,  held  up  their 
hands,  begged  for  their  lives,  cried  "Kamerad,"  "Bon  Fran- 
$ais,"  even  "Vive  la  France."  We  advanced  and  lay  down  in 
columns  by  twos  behind  the  second  crest.  Meanwhile,  bridges 
had  been  thrown  across  trenches  and  boyaux,  and  the  artillery, 
leaving  the  emplacements  where  they  had  been  anchored  a 
whole  year,  came  across  and  took  position  in  the  open,  a  mag 
nificent  spectacle.  Squadrons  of  cavalry  came  up.  Suddenly 
the  long,  unpicturesque  guerre  de  tranchees  was  at  an  end,  and 
the  field  really  presented  the  aspect  of  the  familiar  battle  pic 
tures, — the  battalions  in  manoeuvre,  the  officers,  superbly  in 
different  to  danger,  galloping  about  on  their  chargers.  But 
now  the  German  guns,  moved  back,  began  to  get  our  range, 
and  the  shells  to  burst  over  and  around  batteries  and  troops, 
many  with  admirable  precision.  Here  my  best  comrade  was 
struck  down  by  shrapnel  at  my  side, — painfully  but  not  mor 
tally  wounded. 

I  often  envied  him  after  that.  For  now  our  advanced  troops 
were  in  contact  with  the  German  second-line  defenses,  and 
these  proved  to  be  of  a  character  so  formidable  that  all  further 
advance  without  a  preliminary  artillery  preparation  was  out  of 
the  question.  And  our  r61e,  that  of  troops  in  reserve,  was  to 
lie  passive  in  an  open  field  under  a  shell  fire  that  every  hour 
became  more  terrific,  while  aeroplanes  and  captive  balloons,  to 
which  we  were  entirely  exposed,  regulated  the  fire. 

That  night  we  spent  in  the  rain.  With  portable  picks  and 
shovels  each  man  dug  himself  hi  as  well  as  possible.  The  next 
day  our  concentrated  artillery  again  began  the  bombardment, 
and  again  the  fusillade  announced  the  entrance  of  the  infantry 
into  action.  But  this  time  only  the  wounded  appeared  com 
ing  back,  no  prisoners.  I  went  out  and  gave  water  to  one  of 
these,  eager  to  get  news.  It  was  a  young  soldier,  wounded  in 
the  hand.  His  face  and  voice  bespoke  the  emotion  of  the  ex 
perience  he  had  been  through,  in  a  way  that  I  will  never  forget. 
"Ah,  les  salaudsl"  he  cried,  "They  let  us  come  right  up  to  the 

xxxviii 


barbed  wire  without  firing.  Then  a  hail  of  grenades  and  balls. 
My  comrade  fell,  shot  through  the  leg,  got  up,  and  the  next 
moment  had  his  head  taken  off  by  a  grenade  before  my  eyes." 
"And  the  barbed  wire,  wasn't  it  cut  down  by  the  bombard 
ment?"  "Not  at  all  in  front  of  us."  I  congratulated  him  on 
having  a  blessure  heureuse  and  being  well  out  of  the  affair.  But 
he  thought  only  of  his  comrade  and  went  on  down  the  road 
toward  Souain  nursing  his  mangled  hand,  with  the  stream  of 
wounded  seeking  their  posies  de  secours. 

He  then  tells  how,  in  spite  of  substantial  gains,  it 
gradually  "became  more  and  more  evident  that  the  Ger 
man  second  line  of  defence  presented  obstacles  too  serious 
to  attempt  overcoming  for  the  moment,  and  we  began 
going  up  at  night  to  work  at  consolidating  our  ad 
vanced  trenches  and  turning  them  into  a  new  permanent 
line."  To  this  time,  perhaps,  belongs  the  incident  re 
lated  by  Rif  Baer,  an  Egyptian,  who  was  his  comrade 
and  best  friend  in  the  regiment.  A  piece  of  difficult 
trench  work  was  allotted  to  the  men,  to  be  finished  in  one 
night.  "Each  was  given  the  limit,  that  he  was  supposed 
to  be  able  to  complete  in  the  time.  It  happened  that 
Rif  Baer  was  ill,  and,  after  working  a  while,  his  strength 
gave  out.  Alan  completed  his  own  job  and  R.  B.'s  also, 
and  although  he  was  quite  exhausted  by  the  extra  labour, 
his  eyes  glowed  with  happiness,  and  he  said  he  had  never 
done  anything  in  his  life  that  gave  him  such  entire  satis 
faction." 

Summing  up  the  results  of  the  battle,  Alan  wrote  (still 
in  the  same  letter,  October  25) :  "It  was  a  satisfaction  at 
least  to  get  out  of  the  trenches,  to  meet  the  enemy  face 
to  face  and  to  see  German  arrogance  turned  into  suppli- 
ance.  We  knew  many  splendid  moments,  worth  having 
endured  many  trials  for.  But  in  our  larger  aim,  of 
piercing  their  line,  of  breaking  the  long  deadlock,  of  en- 

xxxix 


tering  Vouziers  in  triumph,  of  course  we  failed."    Then 
he  proceeds: 

This  affair  only  deepened  my  admiration  for,  my  loyalty  to, 
the  French.  If  we  did  not  entirely  succeed,  it  was  not  the 
fault  of  the  French  soldier.  He  is  a  better  man,  man  for  man, 
than  the  German.  Anyone  who  had  seen  the  charge  of  the 
Marsouins  at  Souain  would  acknowledge  it.  Never  was  any 
thing  more  magnificent.  I  remember  a  captain,  badly  wounded 
in  the  leg,  as  he  passed  us,  borne  back  on  a  litter  by  four  Ger 
man  prisoners.  He  asked  us  what  regiment  we  were,  and  when 
we  told  him,  he  cried  "Vive  la  Legion,"  and  kept  repeating 
"Nous  les  avons  eus.  Nous  les  avons  eus."  He  was  suffering, 
but,  oblivious  of  his  wound,  was  still  fired  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  assault  and  all  radiant  with  victory.  What  a  contrast 
with  the  German  wounded  on  whose  faces  was  nothing  but  ter 
ror  and  despair.  What  is  the  stimulus  in  then*  slogans  of 
"Gott  mit  uns"  and  "Fur  Konig  und  Vaterland"  beside  that 
of  men  really  fighting  in  defense  of  their  country?  Whatever 
be  the  force  in  international  conflicts  of  having  justice  and  all 
the  principles  of  personal  morality  on  one's  side,  it  at  least  gives 
the  French  soldier  a  strength  that's  like  the  strength  of  ten 
against  an  adversary  whose  weapon  is  only  brute  violence.  It 
is  inconceivable  that  a  Frenchman,  forced  to  yield,  could  be 
have  as  I  saw  German  prisoners  behave,  trembling,  on  their 
knees,  for  all  the  world  like  criminals  at  length  overpowered  and 
brought  to  justice.  Such  men  have  to  be  driven  to  the  assault, 
or  intoxicated.  But  the  Frenchman  who  goes  up  is  possessed 
with  a  passion  beside  which  any  of  the  other  forms  of  experi 
ence  that  are  reckoned  to  make  life  worth  while  seem  pale  in 
comparison. 

A  report  appeared  in  the  American  newspapers  that  he 
had  been  killed  in  the  battle  of  Champagne.  On  learn 
ing  of  it,  he  wrote  to  his  mother: 

I  am  navr6  to  think  of  your  having  suffered  so.  I  should  have 
arranged  to  cable  after  the  attack,  had  I  known  that  any  such 

xl 


absurd  rumours  had  been  started.  Here  one  has  a  wholesome 
notion  of  the  unimportance  of  the  individual.  It  needs  an 
effort  of  imagination  to  conceive  of  its  making  any  particular 
difference  to  anyone  or  anything  if  one  goes  under.  So  many 
better  men  have  gone,  and  yet  the  world  rolls  on  just  the  same. 

After  Champagne,  his  regiment  passed  to  the  rear  and 
did  not  return  to  the  front  until  May  1916.  On  Febru 
ary  1st  he  writes:  "I  am  in  hospital  for  the  first  time,  not 
for  a  wound,  unfortunately,  but  for  sickness."  Hitherto 
his  health,  since  he  joined  the  army,  had  been  superb. 
As  a  youth  he  had  never  been  robust;  but  the  soldier's 
life  suited  him  to  perfection,  and  all  remnants  of  any  mis 
chief  left  behind  by  the  illness  of  his  childhood  seemed  to 
have  vanished.  It  was  now  a  sharp  attack  of  bronchitis 
that  sent  him  to  hospital.  On  his  recovery  he  obtained 
two  months  conge  de  convalescence,  part  of  which  he  spent 
at  Biarritz  and  part  in  Paris.  About  this  time,  much  to 
his  satisfaction,  he  once  more  came  into  the  possession 
of  "Juvenilia."  On  April  13th  he  wrote  to  his  mother: 

Did  I  tell  you  that  the  Embassy  have  managed  to  get  my 
M.S.  for  me?  It  was  very  interesting  to  re-read  this  work, 
which  I  had  almost  forgotten.  I  found  much  that  was  good 
in  it,  but  much  that  was  juvenile  too,  and  am  not  so  anxious  to 
publish  it  as  it  stands.  I  shall  probably  make  extracts  from  it 
and  join  it  with  what  I  have  done  since.  I  shall  go  back  to  the 
front  on  the  first  of  May  without  regrets.  These  visits  to  the 
rear  only  confirm  me  in  my  conviction  that  the  work  up  there 
on  the  front  is  so  far  the  most  interesting  work  a  man  can  be 
doing  at  this  moment,  that  nothing  else  counts  in  comparison. 

On  May  13th  he  wrote  to  his  "marraine,"  Mrs.  Weeks: 
"The  chateau  in  the  grounds  of  which  we  are  barracked, 
has  a  most  beautiful  name — Bellinglise.  Isn't  it  pretty? 
I  shall  have  to  write  a  sonnet  to  enclose  it,  as  a  ring  is 

xli 


made  express  for  a  jewel.  It  is  a  wonderful  old  seven 
teenth-century  manor,  surrounded  by  a  lordly  estate. 
What  is  that  exquisite  stanza  in  'Maud*  about  'in  the 
evening  through  the  lilacs  (or  laurels)  of  the  old  manorial 
home'  ?>  Look  it  up  and  send  it  to  me."  Ten  days  later 
he  wrote  to  the  same  lady : 

The  week  in  the  trenches  was  a  week  of  the  most  beautiful 
weather.  .  .  .  These  days  were  saddened  by  the  death  of  poor 
Colette  in  the  bombardment,  and  by  the  suffering  of  his  brother 
who  has  now  returned  after  the  burial.  They  were  marked 
on  the  other  hand  by  two  afternoons  of  rather  memorable  emo 
tion.  Exasperated  by  the  inactivity  of  the  sector  here,  and 
tempted  by  danger,  I  stole  off  twice  after  guard,  and  made  a 
patrol  all  by  myself  through  the  wood  paths  and  trails  between 
the  lines.  In  the  front  of  these,  at  a  crossing  of  paths  not  far 
from  one  of  our  posts,  I  found  a  burnt  rocket-stick  planted  in 
the  ground,  and  a  scrap  of  paper  stuck  in  the  top,  placed  there 
by  the  boches  to  guide  their  little  mischief-making  parties  when 
they  come  to  visit  us  in  the  night.  The  scrap  of  paper  was 
nothing  else  than  a  bit  of  the  Berliner  Tageblatt.  This  seemed 
so  interesting  to  me  that  I  reported  it  to  the  captain,  though 
my  going  out  alone  this  way  is  a  thing  strictly  forbidden.  He 
was  very  decent  about  it  though,  and  seemed  really  interested 
in  the  information.  Yesterday  afternoon  I  repeated  this  ex 
ploit,  following  another  trail,  and  I  went  so  far  that  I  came  clear 
up  to  the  German  barbed  wire,  where  I  left  a  card  with  my 
name.  It  was  very  thrilling  work,  "courting  destruction  with 
taunts,  with  invitations"  as  Whitman  would  say.  I  have  never 

*He  was  doubtless  thinking  of  this: 

Alas  for  her  that  met  me, 

That  heard  me  softly  call, 

Came  glimmering  thro'  the  laurels 

In  the  quiet  evenfall, 

In  the  garden  by  the  turrets 

Of  the  old  manorial  hall. 

xlii 


been  in  a  sector  like  this,  where  patrols  could  be  made  in  day 
light.  Here  the  deep  forest  permits  it.  It  also  greatly  facili 
tates  ambushes,  for  one  must  keep  to  the  paths,  owing  to  the 
underbrush.  I  and  a  few  others  are  going  to  try  to  get  permis 
sion  to  go  out  on  patrouilles  d'embuscade  and  bring  in  some  live 
prisoners.  It  would  be  quite  an  extraordinary  feat  if  we  could 
pull  it  off.  In  our  present  existence  it  is  the  only  way  I  can 
think  of  to  get  the  Croix  de  Guerre.  And  to  be  worthy  of  my 
marrame  I  think  that  I  ought  to  have  the  Croix  de  Guerre. 

He  had  hoped  to  have  been  in  Paris  on  Decoration 
Day,  May  30th,  to  read,  before  the  statue  of  Lafayette 
and  Washington,  the  "Ode  in  Memory  of  the  American 
Volunteers  Fallen  for  France,"  which  he  had  written  at 
the  request  of  a  Committee  of  American  residents;  but 
his  "permission"  unfortunately  did  not  arrive  in  time. 
Completed  in  two  days,  during  which  he  was  engaged  in 
the  hardest  sort  of  labour  in  the  trenches,  this  Ode  is 
certainly  the  crown  of  the  poet's  achievement.  It  is  en 
tirely  admirable,  entirely  adequate  to  the  historic  oc 
casion.  If  the  war  has  produced  a  nobler  utterance,  it 
has  not  come  my  way.  On  June  24th,  he  again  wrote, 
giving  an  account  of  a  march,  which  was  "without  ex 
ception  the  hardest  he  had  ever  made" — "20  kilometers 
through  the  blazing  sun  and  in  a  cloud  of  dust.  Some 
thing  around  30  kilograms  on  the  back.  About  50  per 
cent  dropped  by  the  way.  By  making  a  supreme  effort, 
I  managed  to  get  in  at  the  finish,  with  the  fifteen  men 
that  were  all  that  was  left  of  the  section."  He  now  knew 
that  the  great  offensive  was  imminent.  "The  situation," 
he  wrote,  "  is  most  interesting  and  exciting,  but  I  am  not 
at  liberty  to  say  anything  about  it.  My  greatest  pre 
occupation  now  is  whether  this  affair  is  coming  off  before 
or  after  the  4th  of  July.  The  indications  are  that  it  is 
going  to  break  very  soon.  In  that  case  nothing  doing  in 

xliii 


the  way  of  permission.  But  I  still  have  hopes  of  getting 
in." 

His  hopes  of  getting  to  Paris  were  frustrated,  as  were 
all  his  other  hopes  save  one — the  hope  of 

That  rare  privilege  of  dying  well. 

On  July  1st,  the  great  advance  began.  At  six  in  the 
evening  of  July  4th,  the  Legion  was  ordered  to  clear  the 
enemy  out  of  the  village  of  Belloy-en-Santerre.  Alan 
Seeger  advanced  in  the  first  rush,  and  his  squad  was  en 
filaded  by  the  fire  of  six  German  machine  guns,  concealed 
in  a  hollow  way.  Most  of  them  went  down,  and  Alan 
among  them — wounded  in  several  places.  But  the  fol 
lowing  waves  of  attack  were  more  fortunate.  As  his 
comrades  came  up  to  him,  Alan  cheered  them  on;  and  as 
they  left  him  behind,  they  heard  him  singing  a  marching- 
song  in  English: — 

Accents  of  ours  were  in  the  fierce  melee. 

They  took  the  village,  they  drove  the  invaders  out;  but 
for  some  reason  unknown — perhaps  a  very  good  one — the 
battlefield  was  left  unvisited  that  night.  Next  morning, 
Alan  Seeger  lay  dead. 

There  is  little  to  add.  He  wrote  his  own  best  epi 
taph  in  the  "Ode":— 

And  on  those  furthest  rims  of  hallowed  ground 
Where  the  forlorn,  the  gallant  charge  expires, 
When  the  slain  bugler  has  long  ceased  to  sound, 
And  on  the  tangled  wires 
The  last  wild  rally  staggers,  crumbles,  stops, 
Withered  beneath  the  shrapnel's  iron  showers: — 
Now  heaven  be  thanked,  we  gave  a  few  brave  drops* 
Now  heaven  be  thanked,  a  few  brave  drops  were  ours. 

xliv 


His  death  was  briefly  noticed  in  one  or  two  French 
papers.  The  Matin  published  a  translation  of  part  of 
the  poem,  "Champagne,  1914-15,"  and  remarked  that 
"Cyrano  de  Bergerac  would  have  signed  it."  But  France 
had  no  time,  even  if  she  had  had  the  knowledge,  to  realize 
the  greatness  of  the  sacrifice  that  had  been  made  for  her. 
That  will  come  later.  One  day  France  will  know  that 
this  unassuming  soldier  of  the  Legion, 

Who,  not  unmindful  of  the  antique  debt, 
Came  back  the  generous  path  of  Lafayette, 

was  one  whom  even  she  may  be  proud  to  have  reckoned 
among  her  defenders. 

The  "Last  Poems"  speak  for  themselves.  They  con 
tain  lines  which  he  would  doubtless  have  remodelled  had 
he  lived  to  review  them  in  tranquillity — perhaps  one  or 
two  pieces,  sprung  from  a  momentary  mood,  which,  on 
reflection  he  would  have  rejected.1  But  they  not  only 
show  a  great  advance  on  his  earlier  work:  they  rank  high, 
or  I  am  much  mistaken,  among  the  hitherto  not  very 
numerous  poems  in  the  English  language  produced,  not  in 
mere  memory  or  imagination  of  war,  but  hi  its  actual 
stress  and  under  its  haunting  menace. 

Again  and  again  in  the  "Last  Poems" — notably  in 
"Maktoob"  with  its  tribute  to 

The  resignation  and  the  calm 
And  wisdom  of  the  East, 

he  returns  to  the  note  of  fatalism.  Here  he  has  not  only 
the  wisdom  of  the  East  but  the  logic  of  the  West  on  his 

1  Neither  in  the  "Juvenilia"  nor  in  the  "Last  Poems"  has  anything 
been  suppressed  that  he  himself  ever  thought  of  publishing.  Indeed 
nothing  at  all  has  been  omitted,  except  two  early  poems  on  which  he 
had  written  "These  are  worthless." 

xlv 


side.  Necessity  is  as  incontrovertible  to  thought  as  it  is 
incredible  to  feeling.  But  in  the  potent  illusion  of  free 
will  (if  illusion  it  be)  rests  all  morality  and  all  the  ad 
miration  that  we  feel  for  good  and  evil  deeds.  Not  even 
at  Alan  Seeger's  bidding  can  we  quite  persuade  ourselves 
that,  when  he  took  up  arms  for  France,  he  was  exercising 
no  brave,  no  generous  choice,  but  was  the  conscript  of 
Destiny. 

WILLIAM  ARCHER. 


xlvi 


JUVENILIA 

1914 


AN  ODE  TO  NATURAL  BEAUTY 

THERE  is  a  power  whose  inspiration  fills 
Nature's  fair  fabric,  sun-  and  star-inwrought, 
Like  airy  dew  ere  any  drop  distils, 
Like  perfume  in  the  laden  flower,  like  aught 
Unseen  which  interfused  throughout  the  whole 
Becomes  its  quickening  pulse  and  principle  and  soul, 
Now  when,  the  drift  of  old  desire  renewing, 
Warm  tides  flow  northward  over  valley  and  field, 
When  half-forgotten  sound  and  scent  are  wooing 
From  their  deep-chambered  recesses  long  sealed 
Such  memories  as  breathe  once  more 
Of  childhood  and  the  happy  hues  it  wore, 
Now,  with  a  fervor  that  has  never  been 
In  years  gone  by,  it  stirs  me  to  respond, — 
Not  as  a  force  whose  fountains  are  within 
The  faculties  of  the  percipient  mind, 
Subject  with  them  to  darkness  and  decay, 
But  something  absolute,  something  beyond, 
Oft  met  like  tender  orbs  that  seem  to  peer 
From  pale  horizons,  luminous  behind 
Some  fringe  of  tinted  cloud  at  close  of  day; 
And  in  this  flood  of  the  reviving  year, 
When  to  the  loiterer  by  sylvan  streams, 
Deep  in  those  cares  that  make  Youth  loveliest, 
Nature  in  every  common  aspect  seems 
To  comment  on  the  burden  in  his  breast — 
The  joys  he  covets  and  the  dreams  he  dreams — 

3 


One  then  with  all  beneath  the  radiant  skies 

That  laughs  with  him  or  sighs, 

It  courses  through  the  lilac-scented  air, 

A  blessing  on  the  fields,  a  wonder  everywhere- 

Spirit  of  Beauty,  whose  sweet  impulses, 
Flung  like  the  rose  of  dawn  across  the  sea, 
Alone  can  flush  the  exalted  consciousness 
With  shafts  of  sensible  divinity — 
Light  of  the  World,  essential  loveliness: 
Him  whom  the  Muse  hath  made  thy  votary 
Not  from  her  paths  and  gentle  precepture 
Shall  vulgar  ends  engage,  nor  break  the  spell 
That  taught  him  first  to  feel  thy  secret  charms 
And  o'er  the  earth,  obedient  to  their  lure, 
Their  sweet  surprise  and  endless  miracle, 
To  follow  ever  with  insatiate  arms. 
On  summer  afternoons, 
When  from  the  blue  horizon  to  the  shore, 
Casting  faint  silver  pathways  like  the  moon's 
Across  the  Ocean's  glassy,  mottled  floor, 
Far  clouds  uprear  their  gleaming  battlements 
Drawn  to  the  crest  of  some  bleak  eminence, 
When  autumn  twilight  fades  on  the  sere  hill 
And  autumn  winds  are  still; 
To  watch  the  East  for  some  emerging  sign, 
Wintry  Capella  or  the  Pleiades 
Or  that  great  huntsman  with  the  golden  gear; 
Ravished  in  hours  like  these 


Before  thy  universal  shrine 

To  feel  the  invoked  presence  hovering  near, 

He  stands  enthusiastic.     Star-lit  hours 

Spent  on  the  roads  of  wandering  solitude 

Have  set  their  sober  impress  on  his  brow, 

And  he,  with  harmonies  of  wind  and  wood 

And  torrent  and  the  tread  of  mountain  showers, 

Has  mingled  many  a  dedicative  vow 

That  holds  him,  till  thy  last  delight  be  known, 

Bound  in  thy  service  and  in  thine  alone. 

I,  too,  among  the  visionary  throng 
Who  choose  to  follow  where  thy  pathway  leads, 
Have  sold  my  patrimony  for  a  song, 
And  donned  the  simple,  lowly  pilgrim's  weeds. 
From  that  first  image  of  beloved  walls, 
Deep-bo wered  in  umbrage  of  ancestral  trees, 
Where  earliest  thy  sweet  enchantment  falls, 
Tingeing  a  child's  fantastic  reveries 
With  radiance  so  fair  it  seems  to  be 
Of  heavens  just  lost  the  lingering  evidence 
From  that  first  dawn  of  roseate  infancy, 
So  long  beneath  thy  tender  influence 
My  breast  has  thrilled.     As  oft  for  one  brief  second 
The  veil  through  which  those  infinite  offers  beckoned 
Has  seemed  to  tremble,  letting  through 
Some  swift  intolerable  view 
Of  vistas  past  the  sense  of  mortal  seeing, 
So  oft,  as  one  whose  stricken  eyes  might  see 

5 


In  ferny  dells  the  rustic  deity, 

I  stood,  like  him,  possessed,  and  all  my  being, 

Flooded  an  instant  with  unwonted  light, 

Quivered  with  cosmic  passion;   whether  then 

On  woody  pass  or  glistening  mountain-height 

I  walked  in  fellowship  with  winds  and  clouds, 

Whether  in  cities  and  the  throngs  of  men, 

A  curious  saunterer  through  friendly  crowds, 

Enamored  of  the  glance  in  passing  eyes, 

Unuttered  salutations,  mute  replies, — 

In  every  character  where  light  of  thine 

Has  shed  on  earthly  things  the  hue  of  things  divine 

I  sought  eternal  Loveliness,  and  seeking, 

If  ever  transport  crossed  my  brow  bespeaking 

Such  fire  as  a  prophetic  heart  might  feel 

Where  simple  worship  blends  in  fervent  zeal, 

It  was  the  faith  that  only  love  of  thee 

Needed  in  human  hearts  for  Earth  to  see 

Surpassed  the  vision  poets  have  held  dear 

Of  joy  diffused  in  most  communion  here; 

That  whomsoever  thy  visitations  warmed, 

Lover  of  thee  in  all  thy  rays  informed, 

Needed  no  difficulter  discipline 

To  seek  his  right  to  happiness  within 

Than,  sensible  of  Nature's  loveliness, 

To  yield  him  to  the  generous  impulses 

By  such  a  sentiment  evoked.     The  thought, 

Bright  Spirit,  whose  illuminings  I  sought, 

That  thou  unto  thy  worshipper  might  be 


An  all-sufficient  law,  abode  with  me, 

Importing  something  more  than  unsubstantial  dreams 

To  vigils  by  lone  shores  and  walks  by  murmuring  streams. 

Youth's  flowers  like  childhood's  fade  and  are  forgot. 
Fame  twines  a  tardy  crown  of  yellowing  leaves. 
How  swift  were  disillusion,  were  it  not 
That  thou  art  steadfast  where  all  else  deceives ! 
Solace  and  Inspiration,  Power  divine 
That  by  some  mystic  sympathy  of  thine, 
When  least  it  waits  and  most  hath  need  of  thee, 
Can  startle  the  dull  spirit  suddenly 
With  grandeur  welled  from  unsuspected  springs, — 
Long  as  the  light  of  fulgent  evenings, 
When  from  warm  showers  the  pearly  shades  disband 
And  sunset  opens  o'er  the  humid  land, 
Shows  thy  veiled  immanence  in  orient  skies, — 
Long  as  pale  mist  and  opalescent  dyes 
Hung  on  far  isle  or  vanishing  mountain-crest, 
Fields  of  remote  enchantment  can  suggest 
So  sweet  to  wander  in  it  matters  nought, 
They  hold  no  place  but  in  impassioned  thought, 
Long  as  one  draught  from  a  clear  sky  may  be 
A  scented  luxury; 

Be  thou  my  worship,  thou  my  sole  desire, 
Thy  paths  my  pilgrimage,  my  sense  a  lyre 
^Eolian  for  thine  every  breath  to  stir; 
Oft  when  her  full-blown  periods  recur, 
To  see  the  birth  of  day's  transparent  moon 

7 


Far  from  cramped  walls  may  fading  afternoon 

Find  me  expectant  on  some  rising  lawn; 

Often  depressed  in  dewy  grass  at  dawn, 

Me,  from  sweet  slumber  underneath  green  boughs, 

Ere  the  stars  flee  may  forest  matins  rouse, 

Afoot  when  the  great  sun  in  amber  floods 

Pours  horizontal  through  the  steaming  woods 

And  windless  fumes  from  early  chimneys  start 

And  many  a  cock-crow  cheers  the  traveller's  heart 

Eager  for  aught  the  coming  day  afford 

In  hills  untopped  and  valleys  unexplored. 

Give  me  the  white  road  into  the  world's  ends, 

Lover  of  roadside  hazard,  roadside  friends, 

Loiterer  oft  by  upland  farms  to  gaze 

On  ample  prospects,  lost  in  glimmering  haze 

At  noon,  or  where  down  odorous  dales  twilit, 

Filled  with  low  thundering  of  the  mountain  stream, 

Over  the  plain  where  blue  seas  border  it 

The  torrid  coast-towns  gleam. 

I  have  fared  too  far  to  turn  back  now;    my  breast 
Burns  with  the  lust  for  splendors  unrevealed, 
Stars  of  midsummer,  clouds  out  of  the  west, 
Pallid  horizons,  winds  that  valley  and  field 
Laden  with  joy,  be  ye  my  refuge  still ! 
What  though  distress  and  poverty  assail ! 
Though  other  voices  chide,  yours  never  will. 
The  grace  of  a  blue  sky  can  never  fail. 
Powers  that  my  childhood  with  a  spell  so  sweet, 

8 


My  youth  with  visions  of  such  glory  nursed, 
Ye  have  beheld,  nor  ever  seen  my  feet 
On  any  venture  set,  but  'twas  the  thirst 
For  Beauty  willed  them,  yea,  whatever  be 
The  faults  I  wanted  wings  to  rise  above; 
I  am  cheered  yet  to  think  how  steadfastly 
I  have  been  loyal  to  the  love  of  Love! 


THE  DESERTED  GARDEN 

I  KNOW  a  village  in  a  far-off  land 

Where  from  a  sunny,  mountain-girdled  plain 

With  tinted  walls  a  space  on  either  hand 
And  fed  by  many  an  olive-darkened  lane 

The  high-road  mounts,  and  thence  a  silver  band 
Through  vineyard  slopes  above  and  rolling  grain, 

Winds  off  to  that  dim  corner  of  the  skies 

Where  behind  sunset  hills  a  stately  city  lies. 

Here,  among  trees  whose  overhanging  shade 
Strews  petals  on  the  little  droves  below, 

Pattering  townward  in  the  morning  weighed 
With  greens  from  many  an  upland  garden-row, 

Runs  an  old  wall;   long  centuries  have  frayed 
Its  scalloped  edge,  and  passers  to  and  fro 

Heard  never  from  beyond  its  crumbling  height 

Sweet  laughter  ring  at  noon  or  plaintive  song  at  night. 

But  here  where  little  lizards  bask  and  blink 
The  tendrils  of  the  trumpet-vine  have  run, 

At  whose  red  bells  the  humming  bird  to  drink 
Stops  oft  before  his  garden  feast  is  done; 

And  rose-geraniums,  with  that  tender  pink 

That  cloud-banks  borrow  from  the  setting  sun, 

Have  covered  part  of  this  old  wall,  entwined 

With  fair  plumbago,  blue  as  evening  heavens  behind. 


10 


And  crowning  other  parts  the  wild  white  rose 

Rivals  the  honey-suckle  with  the  bees. 
Above  the  old  abandoned  orchard  shows 

And  all  within  beneath  the  dense-set  trees, 
Tall  and  luxuriant  the  rank  grass  grows, 

That  settled  in  its  wavy  depth  one  sees 
Grass  melt  in  leaves,  the  mossy  trunks  between, 
Down  fading  avenues  of  implicated  green; 

Wherein  no  lack  of  flowers  the  verdurous  night 

With  stars  and  pearly  nebula  o'erlay; 
Azalea-boughs  half  rosy  and  half  white 

Shine  through  the  green  and  clustering  apple-spray, 
Such  as  the  fairy-queen  before  her  knight 

Waved  in  old  story,  luring  him  away 
Where  round  lost  isles  Hesperian  billows  break 
Or  towers  loom  up  beneath  the  clear,  translucent  lake; 

And  under  the  deep  grass  blue  hare-bells  hide, 
And  myrtle  plots  with  dew-fall  ever  wet, 

Gay  tiger-lilies  flammulate  and  pied, 

Sometime  on  pathway  borders  neatly  set, 

Now  blossom  through  the  brake  on  either  side, 
Where  heliotrope  and  weedy  mignonette, 

With  vines  in  bloom  and  flower-bearing  trees, 

Mingle  their  incense  all  to  swell  the  perfumed  breeze, 


11 


That  sprung  like  Hermes  from  his  natal  cave 
In  some  blue  rampart  of  the  curving  West, 

Comes  up  the  valleys  where  green  cornfields  wave, 
Ravels  the  cloud  about  the  mountain  crest, 

Breathes  on  the  lake  till  gentle  ripples  pave 
Its  placid  floor;   at  length  a  long-loved  guest, 

He  steals  across  this  plot  of  pleasant  ground, 

Waking  the  vocal  leaves  to  a  sweet  vernal  sound. 

Here  many  a  day  right  gladly  have  I  sped, 

Content  amid  the  wavy  plumes  to  lie, 
And  through  the  woven  branches  overhead 

Watch  the  white,  ever-wandering  clouds  go  by, 
And  soaring  birds  make  their  dissolving  bed 

Far  in  the  azure  depths  of  summer  sky, 
Or  nearer  that  small  huntsman  of  the  air, 
The  fly-catcher,  dart  nimbly  from  his  leafy  lair; 

Pillowed  at  ease  to  hear  the  merry  tune 
Of  mating  warblers  in  the  boughs  above 

And  shrill  cicadas  whom  the  hottest  noon 

Keeps  not  from  drowsy  song;    the  mourning  dove 

Pours  down  the  murmuring  grove  his  plaintive  croon 
That  like  the  voice  of  visionary  love 

Oft  have  I  risen  to  seek  through  this  green  maze 

(Even  as  my  feet  thread  now  the  great  world's  garden- 
ways); 


And,  parting  tangled  bushes  as  I  passed 
Down  beechen  allies  beautiful  and  dim, 

Perhaps  by  some  deep-shaded  pool  at  last 

My  feet  would  pause,  where  goldfish  poise  and  swim, 

And  snowy  callas'  velvet  cups  are  massed 
Around  the  mossy,  fern-encircled  brim. 

Here,  then,  that  magic  summoning  would  cease, 

Or  sound  far  off  again  among  the  orchard  trees. 

And  here  where  the  blanched  lilies  of  the  vale 
And  violets  and  yellow  star-flowers  teem, 

And  pink  and  purple  hyacinths  exhale 

Their  heavy  fume,  once  more  to  drowse  and  dream 

My  head  would  sink,  from  many  an  olden  tale 
Drawing  imagination's  fervid  theme, 

Or  haply  peopling  this  enchanting  spot 

Only  with  fair  creations  of  fantastic  thought. 

For  oft  I  think,  in  years  long  since  gone  by, 
That  gentle  hearts  dwelt  here  and  gentle  hands 

Stored  all  this  bowery  bliss  to  beautify 
The  paradise  of  some  unsung  romance; 

Here,  safe  from  all  except  the  loved  one's  eye, 

'Tis  sweet  to  think  white  limbs  were  wont  to  glance, 

Well  pleased  to  wanton  like  the  flowers  and  share 

Their  simple  loveliness  with  the  enamored  air. 


13 


Thrice  dear  to  them  whose  votive  fingers  decked 
The  altars  of  First  Love  were  these  green  ways, — 

These  lawns  and  verdurous  brakes  forever  flecked 
With  the  warm  sunshine  of  midsummer  days; 

Oft  where  the  long  straight  allies  intersect 
And  marble  seats  surround  the  open  space, 

Where  a  tiled  pool  and  sculptured  fountain  stand, 

Hath  Evening  found  them  seated,  silent,  hand  in  hand. 

When  twilight  deepened,  in  the  gathering  shade 

Beneath  that  old  titanic  cypress  row, 
Whose  sombre  vault  and  towering  colonnade 

Dwarfed  the  enfolded  forms  that  moved  below, 
Oft  with  close  steps  these  happy  lovers  strayed, 

Till  down  its  darkening  aisle  the  sunset  glow 
Grew  less  and  patterning  the  garden  floor 
Faint  flakes  of  filtering  moonlight  mantled  more  and 
more. 

And  the  strange  tempest  that  a  touch  imparts 
Through  the  mid  fibre  of  the  molten  frame, 

When  the  sweet  flesh  in  early  youth  asserts 
Its  heyday  verve  and  little  hints  enflame, 

Disturbed  them  as  they  walked;    from  their  full  hearts 
Welled  the  soft  word,  and  many  a  tender  name 

Strove  on  their  lips  as  breast  to  breast  they  strained 

And  the  deep  joy  they  drank  seemed  never,  never  drained. 


14 


Love's  soul  that  is  the  depth  of  starry  skies 
Set  in  the  splendor  of  one  upturned  face 

To  beam  adorably  through  half-closed  eyes; 

Love's  body  where  the  breadth  of  summer  days 

And  all  the  beauty  earth  and  air  comprise     * 
Come  to  the  compass  of  an  arm's  embrace, 

To  burn  a  moment  on  impassioned  lips 

And  yield  intemperate  joy  to  quivering  finger-tips, 

They  knew;   and  here  where  morning-glories  cling 
Round  carven  forms  of  carefullest  artifice, 

They  made  a  bower  where  every  outward  thing 
Should  comment  on  the  cause  of  their  own  bliss; 

With  flowers  of  liveliest  hue  encompassing 
That  flower  that  the  beloved  body  is — 

That  rose  that  for  the  banquet  of  Love's  bee 

Has  budded  all  the  aeons  of  past  eternity. 

But  their  choice  seat  was  where  the  garden  wall, 
Crowning  a  little  summit,  far  and  near, 

Looks  over  tufted  treetops  onto  all 

The  pleasant  outer  country;   rising  here 

From  rustling  foliage  where  cuckoos  call 
On  summer  evenings,  stands  a  belvedere, 

Buff-hued,  of  antique  plaster,  overrun 

With  flowering  vines  and  weatherworn  by  rain  and  sun. 


Still  round  the  turrets  of  this  antique  tower 
The  bougainvillea  hangs  a  crimson  crown, 

Wistaria-vines  and  clematis  in  flower, 

Wreathing  the  lower  surface  further  down, 

Hide  the  old  plaster  in  a  very  shower 

Of  motley  blossoms  like  a  broidered  gown. 

Outside,  ascending  from  the  garden  grove, 

A  crumbling  stairway  winds  to  the  one  room  above. 

And  whoso  mounts  by  this  dismantled  stair 
Finds  the  old  pleasure-hall,  long  disarrayed, 

Brick-tiled  and  raftered,  and  the  walls  foursquare 
Ringed  all  about  with  a  twofold  arcade. 

Backward  dense  branches  intercept  the  glare 
Of  afternoon  with  eucalyptus  shade; 

Eastward  the  level  valley-plains  expand, 

Sweet  as  a  queen's  survey  of  her  own  Fairyland. 

For  through  that  frame  the  ivied  arches  make, 
Wide  tracts  of  sunny  midland  charm  the  eye, 

Frequent  with  hamlet,  grove,  and  lucent  lake 
Where  the  blue  hills'  inverted  contours  lie; 

Far  to  the  east  where  billowy  mountains  break 
In  surf  of  snow  against  a  sapphire  sky, 

Huge  thunderheads  loom  up  behind  the  ranges, 

Changing  from  gold  to  pink  as  deepening  sunset  changes; 


16 


And  over  plain  and  far  sierra  spread 

The  fulgent  rays  of  fading  afternoon, 
Showing  each  utmost  peak  and  watershed 

All  clarified,  each  tassel  and  festoon 
Of  floating  cloud  embroidered  overhead, 

Like  lotus-leaves  on  bluest  waters  strewn, 
Flushing  with  rose,  while  all  breathes  fresh  and  free 
In  peace  and  amplitude  and  bland  tranquillity. 

Dear  were  such  evenings  to  this  gentle  pair; 

Love's  tide  that  launched  on  with  a  blast  too  strong 
Sweeps  toward  the  foaming  reef,  the  hidden  snare, 

Baffling  with  fond  illusion's  siren-song, 
Too  faint,  on  idle  shoals,  to  linger  there 

Far  from  Youth's  glowing  dream,  bore  them  along, 
With  purple  sail  and  steered  by  seraph  hands 
To  isles  resplendent  in  the  sunset  of  romance. 

And  out  of  this  old  house  a  flowery  fane, 
A  bridal  bower,  a  pearly  pleasure-dome, 

They  built,  and  furnished  it  with  gold  and  grain, 
And  bade  all  spirits  of  beauty  hither  come, 

And  winged  Love  to  enter  with  his  train 
And  bless  their  pillow,  and  in  this  his  home 

Make  them  his  priests  as  Hero  was  of  yore 

In  her  sweet  girlhood  by  the  blue  Dardanian  shore. 


17 


Tree-ferns,  therefore,  and  potted  palms  they  brought, 
Tripods  and  urns  in  rare  and  curious  taste, 

Polychrome  chests  and  cabinets  inwrought 
With  pearl  and  ivory  etched  and  interlaced, 

Pendant  brocades  with  massive  braid  were  caught, 
And  chain-slung,  oriental  lamps  so  placed 

To  light  the  lounger  on  some  low  divan, 

Sunken  in  swelling  down  and  silks  from  Hindustan. 

And  there  was  spread,  upon  the  ample  floors, 
Work  of  the  Levantine's  laborious  loom, 

Such  as  by  Euxine  or  Ionian  shores 

Carpets  the  dim  seraglio's  scented  gloom. 

Each  morn  renewed,  the  garden's  flowery  stores 
Blushed  in  fair  vases,  ochre  and  peach-bloom, 

And  little  birds  through  wicker  doors  left  wide 

Flew  in  to  trill  a  space  from  the  green  world  outside. 

And  there  was  many  a  dainty  attitude, 
Bronze  and  eburnean.     All  but  disarrayed, 

Here  in  eternal  doubt  sweet  Psyche  stood 
Fain  of  the  bath's  delight,  yet  still  afraid 

Lest  aught  in  that  palatial  solitude 

Lurked  of  most  menace  to  a  helpless  maid. 

Therefore  forever  faltering  she  stands, 

Nor  yet  the  last  loose  fold  slips  rippling  from  her  hands. 


18 


Close  by  upon  a  beryl  column,  clad 
In  the  fresh  flower  of  adolescent  grace, 

They  set  the  dear  Bithynian  shepherd  lad, 
The  nude  Antinous.     That  gentle  face, 

Forever  beautiful,  forever  sad, 

Shows  but  one  aspect,  moon-like,  to  our  gaze, 

Yet  Fancy  pictures  how  those  lips  could  smile 

At  revelries  in  Rome,  and  banquets  on  the  Nile. 

And  there  were  shapes  of  Beauty  myriads  more, 
Clustering  their  rosy  bridal  bed  around, 

Whose  scented  breadth  a  silken  fabric  wore 

Broidered  with  peacock  hues  on  creamiest  ground, 

Fit  to  have  graced  the  barge  that  Cydnus  bore 
Or  Venus'  bed  in  her  enchanted  mound, 

While  pillows  swelled  in  stuffs  of  Orient  dyes, 

All  broidered  with  strange  fruits  and  birds  of  Paradise. 

'Twas  such  a  bower  as  Youth  has  visions  of, 

Thither  with  one  fair  spirit  to  retire, 
Lie  upon  rose-leaves,  sleep  and  wake  with  Love 

And  feast  on  kisses  to  the  heart's  desire; 
Where  by  a  casement  opening  on  a  grove, 

Wide  to  the  wood-winds  and  the  sweet  birds'  choir, 
A  girl  might  stand  and  gaze  into  green  boughs, 
Like  Credhe  at  the  window  of  her  golden  house. 


19 


Or  most  like  Vivien,  the  enchanting  fay, 

Where  with  her  friend,  in  the  strange  tower  they  planned, 
She  lies  and  dreams  eternity  away, 

Above  the  treetops  in  Broceliande, 
Sometimes  at  twilight  when  the  woods  are  gray 

And  wolf-packs  howl  far  out  across  the  lande, 
Waking  to  love,  while  up  behind  the  trees 
The  large  midsummer  moon  lifts — even  so  loved  these. 

For  here,  their  pleasure  was  to  come  and  sit 
Oft  when  the  sun  sloped  midway  to  the  west, 

Watching  with  sweet  enjoyment  interknit 

The  long  light  slant  across  the  green  earth's  breast, 

And  clouds  upon  the  ranges  opposite, 
Rolled  up  into  a  gleaming  thundercrest, 

Topple  and  break  and  fall  in  purple  rain, 

And  mist  of  summer  showers  trail  out  across  the  plain. 

Whereon  the  shafts  of  ardent  light,  far-flung 

Across  the  luminous  azure  overhead, 
Ofttimes  in  arcs  of  transient  beauty  hung 

The  fragmentary  rainbow's  green  and  red. 
Joy  it  was  here  to  love  and  to  be  young, 

To  watch  the  sun  sink  to  his  western  bed, 
And  streaming  back  out  of  their  flaming  core 
The  vesperal  aurora's  glorious  banners  soar. 


Tinging  each  altitude  of  heaven  in  turn, 
Those  fiery  rays  would  sweep.     The  cumuli 

That  peeped  above  the  mountain-tops  would  burn 
Carmine  a  space;   the  cirrus- whorls  on  high, 

More  delicate  than  sprays  of  maiden  fern, 

Streak  with  pale  rose  the  peacock-breasted  sky, 

Then  blanch.     As  water-lilies  fold  at  night, 

Sank  back  into  themselves  those  plumes  of  fervid  light. 

And  they  would  watch  the  first  faint  stars  appear, 
The  blue  East  blend  with  the  blue  hills  below, 

As  lovers  when  their  shuddering  bliss  draws  near 
Into  one  pulse  of  fluid  rapture  grow. 

New  fragrance  on  the  freshening  atmosphere 
Would  steal  with  evening,  and  the  sunset  glow 

Draw  deeper  down  into  the  wondrous  west 

Round  vales  of  Proserpine  and  islands  of  the  blest. 

So  dusk  would  come  and  mingle  lake  and  shore, 

The  snow-peaks  fade  to  frosty  opaline, 
To  pearl  the  domed  clouds  the  mountains  bore, 

Where  late  the  sun's  effulgent  fire  had  been — 
Showing  as  darkness  deepened  more  and  more 

The  incandescent  lightnings  flare  within, 
And  Night  that  furls  the  lily  in  the  glen 
And  twines  impatient  arms  would  fall,  and  then — and 
then  . 


Sometimes  the  peasant,  coming  late  from  town 
With  empty  panniers  on  his  little  drove 

Past  the  old  lookout  when  the  Northern  Crown 
Glittered  with  Cygnus  through  the  scented  grove, 

Would  hear  soft  noise  of  lute-strings  wafted  down 
And  voices  singing  through  the  leaves  above 

Those  songs  that  well  from  the  warm  heart  that  woos 

At  balconies  in  Merida  or  Vera  Cruz. 

And  he  would  pause  under  the  garden  wall, 
Caught  in  the  spell  of  that  voluptuous  strain, 

With  all  the  sultry  South  in  it,  and  all 
Its  importunity  of  love  and  pain; 

And  he  would  wait  till  the  last  passionate  fall 
Died  on  the  night,  and  all  was  still  again, — 

Then  to  his  upland  village  wander  home, 

Marvelling  whence  that  flood  of  elfin  song  might  come. 

O  lyre  that  Love's  white  holy  hands  caress, 

Youth,  from  thy  bosom  welled  their  passionate  lays — 

Sweet  opportunity  for  happiness 

So  brief,  so  passing  beautiful — O  days, 

When  to  the  heart's  divine  indulgences 
All  earth  in  smiling  ministration  pays — 

Thine  was  the  source  whose  plenitude,  past  over, 

What  prize  shall  rest  to  pluck,  what  secret  to  discover ! 


The  wake  of  color  that  follows  her  when  May 

Walks  on  the  bills  loose-haired  and  daisy-crowned, 

The  deep  horizons  of  a  summer's  day, 
Fair  cities,  and  the  pleasures  that  abound 

Where  music  calls,  and  crowds  in  bright  array 
Gather  by  night  to  find  and  to  be  found; 

What  were  these  worth  or  all  delightful  things 

Without  thine  eyes  to  read  their  true  interpretings ! 

For  thee  the  mountains  open  glorious  gates, 
To  thee  white  arms  put  out  from  orient  skies, 

Earth,  like  a  jewelled  bride  for  one  she  waits, 
Decks  but  to  be  delicious  in  thine  eyes, 

Thou  guest  of  honor  for  one  day,  whose  fetes 
Eternity  has  travailed  to  devise; 

Ah,  grace  them  well  in  the  brief  hour  they  last! 

Another's  turn  prepares,  another  follows  fast. 

Yet  not  without  one  fond  memorial 

Let  my  sun  set  who  found  the  world  so  fair! 

Frail  verse,  when  Time  the  singer's  coronal 

Has  rent,  and  stripped  the  rose-leaves  from  his  hair, 

Be  thou  my  tablet  on  the  temple  wall ! 
Among  the  pious  testimonials  there, 

Witness  how  sweetly  on  my  heart  as  well 

The  miracles  of  dawn  and  starry  evening  fell! 


Speak  of  one  then  who  had  the  lust  to  feel, 
And,  from  the  hues  that  far  horizons  take, 

And  cloud  and  sunset,  drank  the  wild  appeal, 
Too  deep  to  live  for  aught  but  life's  sweet  sake, 

Whose  only  motive  was  the  will  to  kneel 
Where  Beauty's  purest  benediction  spake, 

Who  only  coveted  what  grove  and  field 

And  sunshine  and  green  Earth  and  tender  arms  could 
yield — 

A  nympholept,  through  pleasant  days  and  drear 

Seeking  his  faultless  adolescent  dream, 
A  pilgrim  down  the  paths  that  disappear 

In  mist  and  rainbows  on  the  world's  extreme, 
A  helpless  voyager  who  all  too  near 

The  mouth  of  Life's  fair  flower-bordered  stream. 
Clutched  at  Love's  single  respite  in  his  need 
More  than  the  drowning  swimmer  clutches  at  a  reed  - 

That  coming  one  whose  feet  in  other  days 
Shall  bleed  like  mine  for  ever  having,  more 

Than  any  purpose,  felt  the  need  to  praise 
And  seek  the  angelic  image  to  adore, 

In  love  with  Love,  its  wonderful,  sweet  ways 
Counting  what  most  makes  life  worth  living  for, 

That  so  some  relic  may  be  his  to  see 

How  I  loved  these  things  too  and  they  were  dear  to  me 


I  sometimes  think  a  conscious  happiness 
Mantles  through  all  the  rose's  sentient  vine 

When  summer  winds  with  myriad  calyces 
Of  bloom  its  clambering  height  incarnadine; 

I  sometimes  think  that  cleaving  lips,  no  less, 

And  limbs  that  crowned  desires  at  length  entwine 

Are  nerves  through  which  that  being  drinks  delight, 

Whose  frame  is  the  green  Earth  robed  round  with  day 
and  night. 

And  such  were  theirs:    the  traveller  without, 
Pausing  at  night  under  the  orchard  trees, 

Wondered  and  crossed  himself  in  holy  doubt, 

For  through  their  song  and  in  the  murmuring  breeze 

It  seemed  angelic  choirs  were  all  about 
Mingling  in  universal  harmonies, 

As  though,  responsive  to  the  chords  they  woke, 

All  Nature  into  sweet  epithalamium  broke. 

And  still  they  think  a  spirit  haunts  the  place: 

'Tis  said,  when  Night  has  drawn  her  jewelled  pall 

And  through  the  branches  twinkling  fireflies  trace 
Their  mimic  constellations,  if  it  fall 

That  one  should  see  the  moon  rise  through  the  lace 
Of  blossomy  boughs  above  the  garden  wall, 

Tkat  surely  would  he  take  great  ill  thereof 

And  famish  in  a  fit  of  unexpressive  love. 


But  this  I  know  not,  for  what  time  the  wain 
Was  loosened  and  the  lily's  petal  furled, 

Then  I  would  rise,  climb  the  old  wall  again, 
And  pausing  look  forth  on  the  sundown  world, 

Scan  the  wide  reaches  of  the  wondrous  plain, 

The  hamlet  sites  where  settling  smoke  lay  curled, 

The  poplar-bordered  roads,  and  far  away 

Fair  snowpeaks  colored  with  the  sun's  last  ray. 

Waves  of  faint  sound  would  pulsate  from  afar — 
Faint  song  and  preludes  of  the  summer  night; 

Deep  in  the  cloudless  west  the  evening  star 
Hung  'twixt  the  orange  and  the  emerald  light; 

From  the  dark  vale  where  shades  crepuscular 

Dimmed  the  old  grove-girt  belfry  glimmering  white, 

Throbbing,  as  gentlest  breezes  rose  or  fell, 

Came  the  sweet  invocation  of  the  evening  bell. 


THE  TORTURE  OF  CUAUHTEMOC 

THEIR  strength  had  fed  on  this  when  Death's  white  arms 
Came  sleeved  in  vapors  and  miasmal  dew, 
Curling  across  the  jungle's  ferny  floor, 
Becking  each  fevered  brain.     On  bleak  divides, 
Where  Sleep  grew  niggardly  for  nipping  cold 
That  twinged  blue  lips  into  a  mouthed  curse, 
Not  back  to  Seville  and  its  sunny  plains 
Winged  their  brief -biding  dreams,  but  once  again, 
Lords  of  a  palace  in  Tenochtitlan, 
They  guarded  Montezuma's  treasure-hoard. 
Gold,  like  some  finny  harvest  of  the  sea, 
Poured  out  knee  deep  around  the  rifted  floors, 
Shiny  and  sparkling, — arms  and  crowns  and  rings: 
Gold,  sweet  to  toy  with  as  beloved  hair, — 
To  plunge  the  lustful,  crawling  fingers  down, 
Arms  elbow  deep,  and  draw  them  out  again, 
And  watch  the  glinting  metal  trickle  off, 
Even  as  at  night  some  fisherman,  home  bound 
With  speckled  cargo  in  his  hollow  keel 
Caught  off  Campeche  or  the  Isle  of  Pines, 
Dips  in  his  paddle,  lifts  it  forth  again, 
And  laughs  to  see  the  luminous  white  drops 
Fall  back  in  flakes  of  fire.  .  .  .     Gold  was  the  dream 
That  cheered  that  desperate  enterprise.    And  now?  .  .  . 
Victory  waited  on  the  arms  of  Spain, 
Fallen  was  the  lovely  city  by  the  lake, 
The  sunny  Venice  of  the  western  world; 

27 


There  many  corpses,  rotting  in  the  wind, 
Poked  up  stiff  limbs,  but  in  the  leprous  rags 
No  jewel  caught  the  sun,  no  tawny  chain 
Gleamed,  as  the  prying  halberds  raked  them  o'er. 
Pillage  that  ran  red-handed  through  the  streets 
|Came  railing  home  at  evening  empty -palmed; 
And  they,  on  that  sad  night  a  twelvemonth  gone, 
Who,  ounce  by  ounce,  dear  as  their  own  life's  blood 
Retreating,  cast  the  cumbrous  load  away: 
They,  when  brown  foemen  lopped  the  bridges  down, 
Who  tipped  thonged  chests  into  the  stream  below 
And  over  wealth  that  might  have  ransomed  kings 
Passed  on  to  safety; — cheated,  guerdonless — 
Found  (through  their  fingers  the  bright  booty  slipped) 
A  city  naked,  of  that  golden  dream 
Shorn  in  one  moment  like  a  sunset  sky. 

Deep  in  a  chamber  that  no  cheerful  ray 

Purged  of  damp  air,  where  in  unbroken  night 

Black  scorpions  nested  in  the  sooty  beams, 

Helpless  and  manacled  they  led  him  down — 

Cuauhtemotzin — and  other  lords  beside — 

All  chieftains  of  the  people,  heroes  all — 

And   stripped   their   feathered   robes   and   bound   them 

there 

On  short  stone  settles  sloping  to  the  head, 
But  where  the  feet  projected,  underneath 
Heaped  the  red  coals.     Their  swarthy  fronts  illumed, 
The  bearded  Spaniards,  helmed  and  haubergeoned, 

28 


Paced  up  and  down  beneath  the  lurid  vault. 
Some  kneeling  fanned  the  glowing  braziers;    some 
Stood  at  the  sufferers'  heads  and  all  the  while 
Hissed  in  their  ears:     "The  gold  .  .  .  the  gold  .  .  .  the 

gold. 

Where  have  ye  hidden  it — the  chested  gold? 
Speak — and  the  torments  cease!" 

They  answered  not. 

Past  those  proud  lips  whose  key  their  sovereign  claimed 
No  accent  fell  to  chide  or  to  betray, 
Only  it  chanced  that  bound  beside  the  king 
Lay  one  whom  Nature,  more  than  other  men 
Framing  for  delicate  and  perfumed  ease, 
Not  yet,  along  the  happy  ways  of  Youth, 
Had  weaned  from  gentle  usages  so  far 
To  teach  that  fortitude  that  warriors  feel 
And  glory  in  the  proof.     He  answered  not, 
But  writhing  with  intolerable  pain, 
Convulsed  in  every  limb,  and  all  his  face 
Wrought  to  distortion  with  the  agony, 
Turned  on  his  lord  a  look  of  wild  appeal, 
The  secret  half  atremble  on  his  lips, 
Livid  and  quivering,  that  waited  yet 
For  leave — for  leave  to  utter  it — one  sign — 
One  word — one  little  word — to  ease  his  pain. 


As  one  reclining  in  the  banquet  hall, 

Propped  on  an  elbow,  garlanded  with  flowers, 

Saw  lust  and  greed  and  boisterous  revelry 

Surge  round  him  on  the  tides  of  wine,  but  he, 

Staunch  in  the  ethic  of  an  antique  school — 

Stoic  or  Cynic  or  of  Pyrrho's  mind— 

With  steady  eyes  surveyed  the  unbridled  scene, 

Himself  impassive,  silent,  self-contained: 

So  sat  the  Indian  prince,  with  brow  unblanched, 

Amid  the  tortured  and  the  torturers. 

He  who  had  seen  his  hopes  made  desolate, 

His  realm  despoiled,  his  early  crown  deprived  him, 

And  watched  while  Pestilence  and  Famine  piled 

His  stricken  people  in  their  reeking  doors, 

Whence  glassy  eyes  looked  out  and  lean  brown  arms 

Stretched  up  to  greet  him  in  one  last  farewell 

As  back  and  forth  he  paced  along  the  streets 

With  words  of  hopeless  comfort — what  was  this 

That  one  should  weaken  now?     He  weakened  not. 

Whate'er  was  in  his  heart,  he  neither  dealt 

In  pity  nor  in  scorn,  but,  turning  round, 

Met  that  racked  visage  with  his  own  unmoved, 

Bent  on  the  sufferer  his  mild  calm  eyes, 

And  while  the  pangs  smote  sharper,  in  a  voice, 

As  who  would  speak  not  all  in  gentleness 

Nor  all  disdain,  said:    "Yes!    And  am  /  then 

Upon  a  bed  of  roses?" 


30 


Stung  with  shame- 
Shame  bitterer  than  his  anguish — to  betray 
Such  cowardice  before  the  man  he  loved, 
And  merit  such  rebuke,  the  boy  grew  calm; 
And  stilled  his  struggling  limbs  and  moaning  cries, 
And  shook  away  his  tears,  and  strove  to  smile, 
And  turned  his  face  against  the  wall — and  died. 


31 


THE  NYMPHOLEPT 

THERE  was  a  boy — not  above  childish  fears — 
With  steps  that  faltered  now  and  straining  ears, 
Timid,  irresolute,  yet  dauntless  still, 
Who  one  bright  dawn,  when  each  remotest  hill 
Stood  sharp  and  clear  in  Heaven's  unclouded  blue 
And  all  Earth  shimmered  with  fresh-beaded  dew, 
Risen  in  the  first  beams  of  the  gladdening  sun, 
Walked  up  into  the  mountains.     One  by  one 
Each  towering  trunk  beneath  his  sturdy  stride 
Fell  back,  and  ever  wider  and  more  wide 
The  boundless  prospect  opened.     Long  he  strayed, 
From  dawn  till  the  last  trace  of  slanting  shade 
Had  vanished  from  the  canyons,  and,  dismayed 
At  that  far  length  to  which  his  path  had  led, 
He  paused — at  such  a  height  where  overhead 
The  clouds  hung  close,  the  air  came  thin  and  chill, 
And  all  was  hushed  and  calm  and  very  still, 
Save,  from  abysmal  gorges,  where  the  sound 
Of  tumbling  waters  rose,  and  all  around 
The  pines,  by  those  keen  upper  currents  blown, 
Muttered  in  multitudinous  monotone. 
Here,  with  the  wind  in  lovely  locks  laid  bare, 
With  arms  oft  raised  in  dedicative  prayer, 
Lost  in  mute  rapture  and  adoring  wonder, 
He  stood,  till  the  far  noise  of  noontide  thunder, 
Rolled  down  upon  the  muffled  harmonies 
Of  wind  and  waterfall  and  whispering  trees, 

32 


Made  loneliness  more  lone.     Some  Panic  fear 
Would  seize  him  then,  as  they  who  seemed  to  hear 
In  Thracian  valleys  or  Thessalian  woods 
The  god's  hallooing  wake  the  leafy  solitudes; 
I  think  it  was  the  same:  some  piercing  sense 
Of  Deity's  pervasive  immanence, 
The  Life  that  visible  Nature  doth  indwell 
Grown  great  and  near  and  all  but  palpable  .  .  . 
He  might  not  linger,  but  with  winged  strides 
Like  one  pursued,  fled  down  the  mountain-sides — 
Down  the  long  ridge  that  edged  the  steep  ravine, 
By  glade  and  flowery  lawn  and  upland  green, 
And  never  paused  nor  felt  assured  again 
But  where  the  grassy  foothills  opened.     Then, 
While  shadows  lengthened  on  the  plain  below 
And  the  sun  vanished  and  the  sunset-glow 
Looked  back  upon  the  world  with  fervid  eye 
Through  the  barred  windows  of  the  western  sky, 
Homeward  he  fared,  while  many  a  look  behind 
Showed  the  receding  ranges  dim-outlined, 
Highland  and  hollow  where  his  path  had  lain, 
Veiled  in  deep  purple  of  the  mountain  rain. 


33 


THE  WANDERER 

To  see  the  clouds  his  spirit  yearned  toward  so 
Over  new  mountains  piled  and  unploughed  waves, 
Back  of  old-storied  spires  and  architraves 
To  watch  Arcturus  rise  or  Fomalhaut, 

And  roused  by  street-cries  in  strange  tongues  when  day 
Flooded  with  gold  some  domed  metropolis, 
Between  new  towers  to  waken  and  new  bliss 
Spread  on  his  pillow  in  a  wondrous  way: 

These  were  his  joys.     Oft  under  bulging  crates, 
Coming  to  market  with  his  morning  load, 
The  peasant  found  him  early  on  his  road 
To  greet  the  sunrise  at  the  city-gates,— 

There  where  the  meadows  waken  in  its  rays, 
Golden  with  mist,  and  the  great  roads  commence, 
And  backward,  where  the  chimney-tops  are  dense, 
Cathedral-arches  glimmer  through  the  haze. 

White  dunes  that  breaking  show  a  strip  of  sea, 
A  plowman  and  his  team  against  the  blue, 
Swiss  pastures  musical  with  cowbells,  too, 
And  poplar-lined  canals  hi  Picardie, 


And  coast-towns  where  the  vultures  back  and  forth 
Sail  in  the  clear  depths  of  the  tropic  sky, 
And  swallows  in  the  sunset  where  they  fly 
Over  gray  Gothic  cities  in  the  north, 

And  the  wine-cellar  and  the  chorus  there, 
The  dance-hall  and  a  face  among  the  crowd, — 
Were  all  delights  that  made  him  sing  aloud 
For  joy  to  sojourn  in  a  world  so  fair. 

Back  of  his  footsteps  as  he  journeyed  fell 
Range  after  range;   ahead  blue  hills  emerged. 
Before  him  tireless  to  applaud  it  surged 
The  sweet  interminable  spectacle. 

And  like  the  west  behind  a  sundown  sea 
Shone  the  past  joys  his  memory  retraced, 
And  bright  as  the  blue  east  he  always  faced 
Beckoned  the  loves  and  joys  that  were  to  be. 

From  every  branch  a  blossom  for  his  brow 
He  gathered,  singing  down  Life's  flower-lined  road, 
And  youth  impelled  his  spirit  as  he  strode 
Like  winged  Victory  on  the  galley's  prow. 

That  Loveliness  whose  being  sun  and  star, 
Green  Earth  and  dawn  and  amber  evening  robe, 
That  lamp  whereof  the  opalescent  globe 
The  season's  emulative  splendors  are, 

35 


That  veiled  divinity  whose  beams  transpire 
From  every  pore  of  universal  space, 
As  the  fair  soul  illumes  the  lovely  face — 
That  was  his  guest,  his  passion,  his  desire. 

His  heart  the  love  of  Beauty  held  as  hides 
One  gem  most  pure  a  casket  of  pure  gold. 
It  was  too  rich  a  lesser  thing  to  hold; 
It  was  not  large  enough  for  aught  besides. 


36 


THE  NEED  TO  LOVE 

THE  nedd  to  love  that  all  the  stars  obey 
Entered  my  heart  and  banished  all  beside. 

Bare  were  the  gardens  where  I  used  to  stray; 
Faded  the  flowers  that  one  time  satisfied. 

Before  the  beauty  of  the  west  on  fire, 

The  moonlit  hills  from  cloister- casements  viewed, 
Cloud-like  arose  the  image  of  desire, 

And  cast  out  peace  and  maddened  solitude. 

I  sought  the  City  and  the  hopes  it  held: 

With  smoke  and  brooding  vapors  intercurled, 

As  the  thick  roofs  and  walls  close-paralleled 
Shut  out  the  fair  horizons  of  the  world — 

A  truant  from  the  fields  and  rustic  joy, 

In  my  changed  thought  that  image  even  so 

Shut  out  the  gods  I  worshipped  as  a  boy 
And  all  the  pure  delights  I  used  to  know. 

Often  the  veil  has  trembled  at  some  tide 

Of  lovely  reminiscence  and  revealed 
How  much  of  beauty  Nature  holds  beside 

Sweet  lips  that  sacrifice  and  arms  that  yield: 


87 


Clouds,  window-framed,  beyond  the  huddled  eaves 
When  summer  cumulates  their  golden  chains, 

Or  from  the  parks  the  smell  of  burning  leaves, 
Fragrant  of  childhood  in  the  country  lanes, 

An  organ-grinder's  melancholy  tune 

In  rainy  streets,  or  from  an  attic  sill 
The  blue  skies  of  a  windy  afternoon 

Where  our  kites  climbed  once  from  some  grassy  hill 

And  my  soul  once  more  would  be  wrapped  entire 
In  the  pure  peace  and  blessing  of  those  years 

Before  the  fierce  infection  of  Desire 

Had  ravaged  all  the  flesh.     Through  starting  tears 

Shone  that  lost  Paradise;    but,  if  it  did, 
Again  ere  long  the  prison-shades  would  fall 

That  Youth  condemns  itself  to  walk  amid, 
So  narrow,  but  so  beautiful  withal. 

And  I  have  followed  Fame  with  less  devotion, 

And  kept  no  real  ambition  but  to  see 
Rise  from  the  foam  of  Nature's  sunlit  ocean 

My  dream  of  palpable  divinity; 

And  aught  the  world  contends  for  to  mine  eye 
Seemed  not  so  real  a  meaning  of  success 

As  only  once  to  clasp  before  I  die 
My  vision  of  embodied  happiness. 

38 


EL  EXTRA VIADO 

OVER  the  radiant  ridges  borne  out  on  the  offshore  wind, 
I  have  sailed  as  a  butterfly  sails  whose  priming  wings 

unfurled 

Leave  the  familiar  gardens  and  visited  fields  behind 
To  follow  a  cloud  in  the  east  rose-flushed  on  the  rim 
of  the  world. 

I  have  strayed  from  the  trodden  highway  for  walking 

with  upturned  eyes 
On  the  way  of  the  wind  in  the  treetops,  and  the  drift 

of  the  tinted  rack. 
For  the  will  to  be  losing  no  wonder  of  sunny  or  starlit 

skies 

I  have  chosen  the  sod  for  my  pillow  and  a  threadbare 
coat  for  my  back. 

Evening  of  ample  horizons,  opaline,  delicate,  pure, 
Shadow  of  clouds  on  green  valleys,  trailed  over  mead 
ows  and  trees, 
Cities  of  ardent  adventure  where  the  harvests  of  Joy 

mature, 

Forests  whose  murmuring  voices  are  amorous  proph 
ecies, 


World  of  romance  and  profusion,  still  round  my  journey 

spread 
The  glamours,  the  glints,  the  enthralments,  the  nurture 

of  one  whose  feet 
From  hours  unblessed  by  beauty  nor  lighted  by  love 

have  fled 

As  the  shade  of  the  tomb  on  his  pathway  and  the 
scent  of  the  winding-sheet. 

I  never  could  rest  from  roving  nor  put  from  my  heart 

this  need 
To  be  seeing  how  lovably  Nature  in  flower  and  face 

hath  wrought, — 
In  flower  and  meadow  and  mountain  and  heaven  where 

the  white  clouds  breed 

And  the  cunning  of  silken  meshes  where  the  heart's 
desire  lies  caught. 

Over  the  azure  expanses,  on  the  offshore  breezes  borne, 
I  have  sailed  as  a  butterfly  sails,  nor  recked  where 

the  impulse  led, 
Sufficed  with  the  sunshine  and  freedom,  the  warmth  and 

the  summer  morn, 
The  infinite  glory  surrounding,  the  infinite  blue  ahear' 


40 


LA  NUE 

OFT  when  sweet  music  undulated  round, 
Like  the  full  moon  out  of  a  perfumed  sea 

Thine  image  from  the  waves  of  blissful  sound 
Rose  and  thy  sudden  light  illumined  me. 

And  in  the  country,  leaf  and  flower  and  air 
Would  alter  and  the  eternal  shape  emerge; 

Because  they  spoke  of  thee  the  fields  seemed  fair, 
And  Joy  to  wait  at  the  horizon's  verge. 

The  little  cloud-gaps  in  the  east  that  filled 
Gray  afternoons  with  bits  of  tenderest  blue 

Were  windows  in  a  palace  pearly-silled 

That  thy  voluptuous  traits  came  glimmering  through, 

And  in  the  city,  dominant  desire 

For  which  men  toil  within  its  prison-bars, 

I  watched  thy  white  feet  moving  in  the  mire 
And  thy  white  forehead  hid  among  the  stars. 

Mystical,  feminine,  provoking,  nude, 

Radiant  there  with  rosy  arms  outspread, 

Sum  of  fulfillment,  sovereign  attitude, 

Sensual  with  laughing  lips  and  thrown-back  head, 


41 


Draped  in  the  rainbow  on  the  summer  hills, 
Hidden  in  sea-mist  down  the  hot  coast-line, 

Couched  on  the  clouds  that  fiery  sunset  fills, 
Blessed,  remote,  impersonal,  divine; 

The  gold  all  color  and  grace  are  folded  o'er, 

The  warmth  all  beauty  and  tenderness  embower, — 

Thou  quiverest  at  Nature's  perfumed  core, 
The  pistil  of  a  myriad-petalled  flower. 

Round  thee  revolves,  inimitably  wide, 

The  world's  desire,  as  stars  around  their  pole. 

Round  thee  all  earthly  loveliness  beside 
Is  but  the  radiate,  infinite  aureole. 

Thou  art  the  poem  on  the  cosmic  page — 
In  rubric  written  on  its  golden  ground — 

That  Nature  paints  her  flowers  and  foliage 
And  rich-illumined  commentary  round. 

Thou  art  the  rose  that  the  world's  smiles  and  tears 
Hover  about  like  butterflies  and  bees. 

Thou  art  the  theme  the  music  of  the  spheres 
Echoes  in  endless,  variant  harmonies. 

Thou  art  the  idol  in  the  altar-niche 

Faced  by  Love's  congregated  worshippers, 

Thou  art  the  holy  sacrament  round  which 
The  vast  cathedral  is  the  universe. 

42 


Thou  art  the  secret  in  the  crystal  where, 
For  the  last  light  upon  the  mystery  Man, 

In  his  lone  tower  and  ultimate  despair, 
Searched  the  gray-bearded  Zoroastrian. 

And  soft  and  warm  as  in  the  magic  sphere, 
Deep-orbed  as  in  its  erubescent  fire, 

So  in  my  heart  thine  image  would  appear, 

Curled  round  with  the  red  flames  of  my  desire. 


ALL  THAT'S  NOT  LOVE  .  .  . 

ALL  that's  not  love  is  the  dearth  of  my  days, 
The  leaves  of  the  volume  with  rubric  unwrit, 

The  temple  in  times  without  prayer,  without  praise. 
The  altar  unset  and  the  candle  unlit. 

Let  me  survive  not  the  lovable  sway 

Of  early  desire,  nor  see  when  it  goes 
The  courts  of  Life's  abbey  in  ivied  decay, 

Whence  sometime  sweet  anthems  and  incense  arose. 

The  delicate  hues  of  its  sevenfold  rings 

The  rainbow  outlives  not;  their  yellow  and  blue 

The  butterfly  sees  not  dissolve  from  his  wings, 

But  even  with  their  beauty  life  fades  from  them  too. 

No  more  would  I  linger  past  Love's  ardent  bounds 
Nor  live  for  aught  else  but  the  joy  that  it  craves, 

That,  burden  and  essence  of  all  that  surrounds, 

Is  the  song  in  the  wind  and  the  smile  on  the  waves. 


44 


PARIS 


FIRST,  London,  for  its  myriads;    for  its  height, 
Manhattan  heaped  in  towering  stalagmite; 
But  Paris  for  the  smoothness  of  the  paths 
That  lead  the  heart  unto  the  heart's  delight.  .  .  ; 

Fair  loiterer  on  the  threshold  of  those  days 
When  there's  no  lovelier  prize  the  world  displays 
Than,  having  beauty  and  your  twenty  years, 
You  have  the  means  to  conquer  and  the  ways, 

And  coming  where  the  crossroads  separate 
And  down  each  vista  glories  and  wonders  wait, 
Crowning  each  path  with  pinnacles  so  fair 
You  know  not  which  to  choose,  and  hesitate — 

Oh,  go  to  Paris.  ...     In  the  midday  gloom 

Of  some  old  quarter  take  a  little  room 

That  looks  off  over  Paris  and  its  towers 

From  Saint  Gervais  round  to  the  Emperor's  Tomb,- 

So  high  that  you  can  hear  a  mating  dove 
Croon  down  the  chimney  from  the  roof  above, 
See  Notre  Dame  and  know  how  sweet  it  is 
To  wake  between  Our  Lady  and  our  love. 


And  have  a  little  balcony  to  bring 
Fair  plants  to  fill  with  verdure  and  blossoming, 
That  sparrows  seek,  to  feed  from  pretty  hands, 
And  swallows  circle  over  in  the  Spring. 

There  of  an  evening  you  shall  sit  at  ease 
In  the  sweet  month  of  flowering  chestnut-trees, 
There  with  your  little  darling  in  your  arms, 
Your  pretty  dark-eyed  Manon  or  Louise. 

And  looking  out  over  the  domes  and  towers 
That  chime  the  fleeting  quarters  and  the  hours, 
While  the  bright  clouds  banked  eastward  back  of  them 
Blush  in  the  sunset,  pink  as  hawthorn  flowers, 

You  cannot  fail  to  think,  as  I  have  done, 
Some  of  life's  ends  attained,  so  you  be  one 
Who  measures  life's  attainment  by  the  hours 
That  Joy  has  rescued  from  oblivion. 


n 

Come  out  into  the  evening  streets.     The  green  light 

lessens  in  the  west. 
The  city  laughs  and  liveliest  her  fervid  pulse  of  pleasure 

beats. 

The  belfry   on   Saint   Severin   strikes   eight  across   the 

smoking  eaves: 
Come  out  under  the  lights  and  leaves  to  the  Reine  Blanche 

on  Saint  Germain.  .  .  . 

Now  crowded  diners  fill  the  floor  of  brasserie  and  res 
taurant. 

Shrill  voices  cry  "LTntransigeant,"  and  corners  echo 
"Paris-Sport." 

Where  rows  of  tables  from  the  street  are  screened  with 

shoots  of  box  and  bay, 
The  ragged  minstrels  sing  and  play   and  gather  sous 

from  those  that  eat. 

And  old  men  stand  with  menu-cards,  inviting  passers- 
by  to  dine 

On  the  bright  terraces  that  line  the  Latin  Quarter  boule 
vards. 


47 


But,  having  drunk  and  eaten  well,  'tis  pleasant  then  to 

stroll  along 
And  mingle  with  the  merry  throng  that  promenades  on 

Saint  Michel. 

Here  saunter  types  of  every  sort.     The  shoddy  jostle 

with  the  chic: 
Turk  and  Roumanian  and  Greek;    student  and  officer 

and  sport; 

Slavs  with  their  peasant,  Christ-like  heads,  and  cour 
tezans  like  powdered  moths, 

And  peddlers  from  Algiers,  with  cloths  bright-hued  and 
stitched  with  golden  threads; 

And  painters  with  big,  serious  eyes  go  rapt  in  dreams, 

fantastic  shapes 
In  corduroys  and  Spanish  capes  and  locks  uncut  and 

flowing  ties; 

And  lovers  wander  two  by  two,  oblivious  among  the 

press, 
And  making  one  of  them  no  less,  all  lovers  shall  be  dear 

to  you: 

All  laughing  lips  you  move  among,  all  happy  hearts 
that,  knowing  what 

Makes  life  worth  while,  have  wasted  not  the  sweet  re 
prieve  of  being  young. 

48 


"Comment  ga  va!"  "Mon  vieux!"  "Mon  cher!" 
Friends  greet  and  banter  as  they  pass. 

Tis  sweet  to  see  among  the  mass  comrades  and  lovers 
everywhere, 

A  law  that's  sane,  a  Love  that's  free,  and  men  of  every 

birth  and  blood 
Allied  in  one  great  brotherhood  of  Art  and  Joy  and 

Poverty.  .  .  . 

The  open  cafe-windows  frame  loungers  at  their  liqueurs 

and  beer, 
And  walking  past  them  one  can  hear  fragments  of  Tosca 

and  Boheme. 

And  in  the  brilliant-lighted  door  of  cinemas  the  barker 

calls, 
And  lurid  posters  paint  the  walls  with  scenes  of  Love 

and  crime  and  war. 

But  follow  past  the  flaming  lights,  borne  onward  with 

the  stream  of  feet, 
Where  Bullier's  further  up  the  street  is  marvellous  on 

Thursday  nights. 

Here  all  Bohemia  flocks  apace;    you  could  not  often 

find  elsewhere 
So  many  happy  heads  and  fair  assembled  in  one  time 

and  place. 

49 


Under  the  glare  and  noise  and  heat  the  galaxy  of  dancing 

whirls, 
Smokers,  with  covered  heads,  and  girls  dressed  in  the 

costume  of  the  street. 

From  tables  packed  around  the  wall  the  crowds  that 

drink  and  frolic  there 
Spin  serpentines  into  the  air  far  out  over  the  reeking  hall, 

That,  settling  where  the  coils  unroll,  tangle  with  pink 

and  green  and  blue 
The  crowds  that  rag  to  "Hitchy-koo"  and  boston  to 

the  "Barcarole."  .  .  . 

Here  Mimi  ventures,  at  fifteen,  to  make  her  dtbut  in 

romance, 
And  join  her  sisters  in  the  dance  and  see  the  life  that 

they  have  seen. 

Her  hair,  a  tight  hat  just  allows  to  brush  beneath  the 

narrow  brim, 
Docked,  in  the  model's  present  whim,  frisS  and  banged 

above  the  brows. 

Uncorseted,  her  clinging  dress  with  every  step  and  turn 

betrays, 
In  pretty  and  provoking  ways  her  adolescent  loveliness, 


50 


As  guiding  Gaby  or  Lucile  she  dances,  emulating  them 
In  each  disturbing  stratagem  and  each  lascivious  appeal. 

Each  turn  a  challenge,  every  pose  an  invitation  to  com 
pete, 

Along  the  maze  of  whirling  feet  the  grave-eyed  little 
wanton  goes, 

And,  flaunting  all  the  hue  that  lies  in  childish  cheeks 

and  nubile  waist, 
She    passes,    charmingly    unchaste,    illumining    ignoble 

eyes.  .  .  . 

But   now   the   blood   from   every   heart   leaps    madder 

through  abounding  veins 
As  first  the  fascinating  strains  of  "El  Irresistible"  start. 

Caught  in  the  spell  of  pulsing  sound,  impatient  elbows 

lift  and  yield 
The  scented  softnesses  they  shield  to  arms  that  catch 

and  close  them  round, 

Surrender,  swift  to  be  possessed,  the  silken  supple  forms 
beneath 

To  all  the  bliss  the  measures  breathe  and  all  the  mad 
ness  they  suggest. 


51 


Crowds  congregate  and  make  a  ring.     Four  deep  they 

stand  and  strain  to  see 
The  tango  in  its  ecstasy  of  glowing  lives  that  clasp  and 

cling. 

Lithe  limbs  relaxed,  exalted  eyes  fastened  on  vacancy, 

they  seem 
To  float  upon  the  perfumed  stream  of  some  voluptuous 

Paradise, 

Or,  rapt  in  some  Arabian  Night,  to  rock  there,  cradled 

and  subdued, 
In  a  luxurious  lassitude  of  rhythm  and  sensual  delight. 

And  only  when  the  measures  cease  and  terminate  the 

flowing  dance 
They  waken  from  their  magic  trance  and  join  the  cries 

that  clamor  "Bis!"  .  .  . 

Midnight  adjourns  the  festival.     The  couples  climb  the 

crowded  stair, 
And  out  into  the  warm  night  air  go  singing  fragments 

of  the  ball. 

Close-folded  in  desire  they  pass,  or  stop  to  drink  and 

talk  awhile 
In  the  cafes  along  the  mile  from  Bullier's  back  to  Mont- 

parnasse: 

52 


The  "Clossrie"  or  "La  Rotonde,"  where  smoking,  under 

lamplit  trees, 
Sit  Art's  enamored  devotees,  chatting  across  their  brune 

and  blonde.  .  .  . 

Make  one  of  them  and  come  to  know  sweet  Paris — not 

as  many  do, 
Seeing  but  the  folly  of  the  few,  the  froth,  the  tinsel,  and 

the  show — 

But  taking  some  white  proffered  hand  that  from  Earth's 

barren  every  day 
Can  lead  you  by  the  shortest  way  into  Love's  florid 

fairyland. 

And  that  divine  enchanted  life  that  lurks  under  Life's 

common  guise — 
That  city  of  romance  that  lies  within  the  City's  toil 

and  strife — 

Shall,  knocking,  open  to  your  hands,  for  Love  is  all  its 

golden  key, 
And  one's  name  murmured  tenderly  the  only  magic  it 

demands. 

And  when  all  else  is  gray  and  void  in  the  vast  gulf  of 

memory, 
Green  islands  of  delight  shall  be  all  blessed  moments  so 

enjoyed: 


When  vaulted  with  the  city  skies,  on  its  cathedral  floors 

you  stood, 
And,  priest  of  a  bright  brotherhood,  performed  the  mystic 

sacrifice, 

At  Love's  high  altar  fit  to  stand,  with  fire  and  incense 

aureoled, 
The  celebrant  in  cloth  of  gold  with  Spring  and  Youth  on 

either  hand. 


Ill 

CHORAL   SONG 

Have  ye  gazed  on  its  grandeur 

Or  stood  where  it  stands 
With  opal  and  amber 

Adorning  the  lands, 
And  orcharded  domes 

Of  the  hue  of  all  flowers? 
Sweet  melody  roams 

Through  its  blossoming  bowers, 

Sweet  bells  usher  in  from  its  belfries  the  train  of  the 
honey-sweet  hour. 

A  city  resplendent, 

Fulfilled  of  good  things, 
On  its  ramparts  are  pendent 

The  bucklers  of  kings. 
Broad  banners  unfurled 

Are  afloat  in  its  air. 
The  lords  of  the  world 

Look  for  harborage  there. 

None  finds  save  he  conies  as  a  bridegroom,  having  roses 
and  vine  in  his  hair. 


55 


'Tis  the  city  of  Lovers, 

There  many  paths  meet. 
Blessed  he  above  others, 

With  faltering  feet, 
Who  past  its  proud  spires 

Intends  not  nor  hears 
The  noise  of  its  lyres 

Grow  faint  in  his  ears! 

Men   reach   it  through   portals   of   triumph,   but  leave 
through  a  postern  of  tears. 

It  was  thither,  ambitious, 

We  came  for  Youth's  right, 
When  our  lips  yearned  for  kisses 

As  moths  for  the  light, 
When  our  souls  cried  for  Love 

As  for  life-giving  rain 
Wan  leaves  of  the  grove, 

Withered  grass  of  the  plain, 

And  our  flesh  ached  for  Love-flesh  beside  it  with  bit 
ter,  intolerable  pain. 


Under  arbor  and  trellis, 

Full  of  flutes,  full  of  flowers, 
What  mad  fortunes  befell  us, 

What  glad  orgies  were  ours ! 
In  the  days  of  our  youth, 

In  our  festal  attire, 
When  the  sweet  flesh  was  smooth, 

When  the  swift  blood  was  fire, 

And  all  Earth  paid  in  orange  and  purple  to  pavilion 
the  bed  of  Desire ! 


57 


THE  SULTAN'S  PALACE 

MY  spirit  only  lived  to  look  on  Beauty's  face, 

As  only  when  they  clasp  the  arms  seem  served  aright; 

As  in  their  flesh  inheres  the  impulse  to  embrace, 
To  gaze  on  Loveliness  was  my  soul's  appetite. 

I  have  roamed  far  in  search ;  white  road  and  plunging  bow 
Were  keys  in  the  blue  doors  where  my  desire  was  set; 

Obedient  to  their  lure,  my  lips  and  laughing  brow 
The  hill-showers  and  the  spray  of  many  seas  have  wet. 

Hot  are  enamored  hands,  the  fragrant  zone  unbound, 
To  leave  no  dear  delight  unfelt,  unfondled  o'er, 

The  will  possessed  my  heart  to  girdle  Earth  around 
With  their  insatiate  need  to  wonder  and  adore. 

The  flowers  in  the  fields,  the  surf  upon  the  sands, 
The  sunset  and  the  clouds  it  turned  to  blood  and  wine, 

Were  shreds  of  the  thin  veil  behind  whose  beaded  strands 
A  radiant  visage  rose,  serene,  august,  divine. 

A  noise  of  summer  wind  astir  in  starlit  trees, 

A  song  where  sensual  love's  delirium  rose  and  fell, 

Were  rites  that  moved  my  soul  more  than  the  devotee's 
When  from  the  blazing  choir  rings  out  the  altar  bell. 


58 


I  woke  amid  the  pomp  of  a  proud  palace;   writ 
In  tinted  arabesque  on  walls  that  gems  overlay, 

The  names  of  caliphs  were  who  once  held  court  in  it, 
Their  baths  and  bowers  were  mine  to  dwell  in  for  a  day. 

Their  robes  and  rings  were  mine  to  draw  from  shimmer-  | 
ing  trays — 

Brocades  and  broidered  silks,  topaz  and  tourmaline — 
Then*  turban-cloths  to  wind  in  proud  capricious  ways, 

And  fasten  plumes  and  pearls  and  pendent  sapphires  in. 

I  rose;  far  music  drew  my  steps  in  fond  pursuit 
Down  tessellated  floors  and  towering  peristyles: 

Through  groves  of  colonnades  fair  lamps  were  blushing 

fruit, 
On  seas  of  green  mosaic  soft  rugs  were  flowery  isles. 

And  there  were  verdurous  courts  that  scalloped  arches 
wreathed, 

Where  fountains  plashed  in  bowls  of  lapis  lazuli. 
Through  enigmatic  doors  voluptuous  accents  breathed, 

And  having  Youth  I  had  their  Open  Sesame. 

I  paused  where  shadowy  walls  were  hung  with  cloths  of 

gold, 
And  tinted  twilight  streamed  through  storied  panes 

above. 

In  lamplit  alcoves  deep  as  flowers  when  they  unfold 
Soft  cushions  called  to  rest  and  fragrant  fumes  to  love. 

59 


I  hungered;   at  my  hand  delicious  dainties  teemed — 
Fair  pyramids  of  fruit;   pastry  in  sugared  piles. 

I  thirsted;   in  cool  cups  inviting  vintage  beamed — 
Sweet  syrups  from  the  South;  brown  muscat  from  the 
isles. 

I  yearned  for  passionate  Love;    faint  gauzes  fell  away. 

Pillowed  in  rosy  light  I  found  my  heart's  desire. 
Over  the  silks  and  down  her  florid  beauty  lay, 

As  over  orient  clouds  the  sunset's  coral  fire. 

Joys  that  had  smiled  afar,  a  visionary  form, 

Behind  the  ranges  hid,  remote  and  rainbow-dyed, 

Drew  near  unto  my  heart,  a  wonder  soft  and  warm, 
To  touch,  to  stroke,  to  clasp,  to  sleep  and  wake  beside. 

Joy,  that  where  summer  seas  and  hot  horizons  shone 
Had  been  the  outspread  arms  I  gave  my  youth  to  seek, 

Drew  near;  awhile  its  pulse  strove  sweetly  with  my  own, 
Awhile  I  felt  its  breath  astir  upon  my  cheek. 

I  was  so  happy  there;  so  fleeting  was  my  stay, — 
What  wonder  if,  assailed  with  vistas  so  divine, 

I  only  lived  to  search  and  sample  them  the  day 
When  between  dawn  and  dusk  the  sultan's  courts 
were  mine! 


60 


Speak  not  of  other  worlds  of  happiness  to  be, 
As  though  in  any  fond  imaginary  sphere 

Lay  more  to  tempt  man's  soul  to  immortality 

Than  ripens  for  his  bliss  abundant  now  and  here! 

Flowerlike  I  hope  to  die  as  flowerlike  was  my  birth. 

Rooted  in  Nature's  just  benignant  law  like  them, 
I  want  no  better  joys  than  those  that  from  green  Earth 

My  spirit's  blossom  drew  through  the  sweet  body's 
stem. 

I  see  no  dread  in  death,  no  horror  to  abhor. 

I  never  thought  it  else  than  but  to  cease  to  dwell 
Spectator,  and  resolve  most  naturally  once  more 

Into  the  dearly  loved  eternal  spectacle. 

Unto  the  fields  and  flowers  this  flesh  I  found  so  fair 
I  yield;  do  you,  dear  friend,  over  your  rose-crowned 

wine, 
Murmur  my  name  some  day  as  though  my  lips  were 

there, 

And  frame  your  mouth  as  though  its  blushing  kiss 
were  mine. 

Yea,  where  the  banquet-hall  is  brilliant  with  young  men, 
You  whose  bright  youth  it  might  have  thrilled  my 

breast  to  know, 

Drink  .  .  .  and  perhaps  my  lips,  insatiate  even  then 
Of  lips  to  hang  upon,  may  find  their  loved  ones  so. 

61 


Unto  the  flush  of  dawn  and  evening  I  commend 
This  immaterial  self  and  flamelike  part  of  me, — 

Unto  the  azure  haze  that  hangs  at  the  world's  end, 
The  sunshine  on  the  hills,  the  starlight  on  the  sea, — 

Unto  angelic  Earth,  whereof  the  lives  of  those 

Who  love  and  dream  great  dreams  and  deeply  feel 
may  be 

The  elemental  cells  and  nervules  that  compose 
Its  divine  consciousness  and  joy  and  harmony. 


FRAGMENTS 


IN  that  fair  capital  where  Pleasure,  crowned 

Amidst  her  myriad  courtiers,  riots  and  rules, 

I  too  have  been  a  suitor.     Radiant  eyes 

Were  my  life's  warmth  and  sunshine,  outspread  arms 

My  gilded  deep  horizons.     I  rejoiced 

In  yielding  to  all  amorous  influence 

And  multiple  impulsion  of  the  flesh, 

To  feel  within  my  being  surge  and  sway 

The  force  that  all  the  stars  acknowledge  too. 

Amid  the  nebulous  humanity 

Where  I  an  atom  crawled  and  cleaved  and  sundered, 

I  saw  a  million  motions,  but  one  law; 

And  from  the  city's  splendor  to  my  eyes 

The  vapors  passed  and  there  was  nought  but  Love, 

A  ferment  turbulent,  intensely  fair, 

Where  Beauty  beckoned  and  where  Strength  pursued. 


63 


II 

There  was  a  time  when  I  thought  much  of  Fame, 
And  laid  the  golden  edifice  to  be 
That  in  the  clear  light  of  eternity 
Should  fitly  house  the  glory  of  my  name. 

But  swifter  than  my  fingers  pushed  their  plan, 
Over  the  fair  foundation  scarce  begun, 
While  I  with  lovers  dallied  in  the  sun, 
The  ivy  clambered  and  the  rose- vine  ran. 

And  now,  too  late  to  see  my  vision,  rise, 
In  place  of  golden  pinnacles  and  towers, 
Only  some  sunny  mounds  of  leaves  and  flowers, 
Only  beloved  of  birds  and  butterflies. 

My  friends  were  duped,  my  favorers  deceived; 
But  sometimes,  musing  sorrowfully  there, 
That  flowered  wreck  has  seemed  to  me  so  fair 
I  scarce  regret  the  temple  unachieved. 


64 


Ill 

For  there  were  nights  .  .  .  my  love  to  him  whose  brow 

Has  glistened  with  the  spoils  of  nights  like  those, 

Home  turning  as  a  conqueror  turns  home, 

What  time  green  dawn  down  every  street  uprears 

Arches  of  triumph !     He  has  drained  as  well 

Joy's  perfumed  bowl  and  cried  as  I  have  cried: 

Be  Fame  their  mistress  whom  Love  passes  by. 

This  only  matters:    from  some  flowery  bed, 

Laden  with  sweetness  like  a  homing  bee, 

If  one  have  known  what  bliss  it  is  to  come, 

Bearing  on  hands  and  breast  and  laughing  lips 

The  fragrance  of  his  youth's  dear  rose.     To  him 

The  hills  have  bared  their  treasure,  the  far  clouds 

Unveiled  the  vision  that  o'er  summer  seas 

Drew  on  his  thirsting  arms.     This  last  thing  known, 

He  can  court  danger,  laugh  at  perilous  odds, 

And,  pillowed  on  a  memory  so  sweet, 

Unto  oblivious  eternity 

Without  regret  yield  his  victorious  soul, 

The  blessed  pilgrim  of  a  vow  fulfilled. 


65 


IV 

What  is  Success?    Out  of  the  endless  ore 

Of  deep  desire  to  coin  the  utmost  gold 

Of  passionate  memory;   to  have  lived  so  well 

That  the  fifth  moon,  when  it  swims  up  once  more 

Through  orchard  boughs  where  mating  orioles  build 

And  apple  flowers  unfold, 

Find  not  of  that  dear  need  that  all  things  tell 

The  heart  unburdened  nor  the  arms  unfilled. 

O  Love,  whereof  my  boyhood  was  the  dream, 

My  youth  the  beautiful  novitiate, 

Life  was  so  slight  a  thing  and  thou  so  great, 

How  could  I  make  thee  less  than  all-supreme! 

In  thy  sweet  transports  not  alone  I  thought 

Mingled  the  twain  that  panted  breast  to  breast. 

The  sun  and  stars  throbbed  with  them ;  they  were  caught 

Into  the  pulse  of  Nature  and  possessed 

By  the  same  light  that  consecrates  it  so. 

Love ! — 'tis  the  payment  of  the  debt  we  owe 

The  beauty  of  the  world,  and  whensoe'er 

In  silks  and  perfume  and  unloosened  hair 

The  loveliness  of  lovers,  face  to  face, 

Lies  folded  in  the  adorable  embrace, 


66 


Doubt  not  as  of  a  perfect  sacrifice 

That  soul  partakes  whose  inspiration  fills 

The  springtime  and  the  depth  of  summer  skies, 

The  rainbow  and  the  clouds  behind  the  hills, 

That  excellence  in  earth  and  air  and  sea 

That  makes  things  as  they  are  the  real  divinity, 


67 


SONNET  I 

DOWN  the  strait  vistas  where  a  city  street 
Fades  in  pale  dust  and  vaporous  distances, 
Stained  with  far  fumes  the  light  grows  less  and  less 
And  the  sky  reddens  round  the  day's  retreat. 
Now  out  of  orient  chambers,  cool  and  sweet, 
Like  Nature's  pure  lustration,  Dusk  comes  down. 
Now  the  lamps  brighten  and  the  quickening  town 
Rings  with  the  trample  of  returning  feet. 
And  Pleasure,  risen  from  her  own  warm  mould 
Sunk  all  the  drowsy  and  unloved  daylight 
In  layers  of  odorous  softness,  Paphian  girls 
Cover  with  gauze,  with  satin,  and  with  pearls, 
Crown,  and  about  her  spangly  vestments  fold 
The  ermine  of  the  empire  of  the  Night. 


68 


SONNET  II 

HER  courts  are  by  the  flux  of  flaming  ways, 

Between  the  rivers  and  the  illumined  sky 

Whose  fervid  depths  reverberate  from  on  high 

Fierce  lustres  mingled  in  a  fiery  haze. 

They  mark  it  inland;   blithe  and  fair  of  face 

Her  suitors  follow,  guessing  by  the  glare 

Beyond  the  hilltops  in  the  evening  air 

How  bright  the  cressets  at  her  portals  blaze. 

On  the  pure  fronts  Defeat  ere  many  a  day 

Falls  like  the  soot  and  dirt  on  city-snow; 

There  hopes  deferred  lie  sunk  in  piteous  seams. 

Her  paths  are  disillusion  and  decay, 

With  ruins  piled  and  unapparent  woe, 

The  graves  of  Beauty  and  the  wreck  of  dreams. 


69 


SONNET  HI 

THERE  was  a  youth  around  whose  early  way 

White  angels  hung  in  converse  and  sweet  choir, 

Teaching  in  summer  clouds  his  thought  to  stray, — 

In  cloud  and  far  horizon  to  desire. 

His  life  was  nursed  in  beauty,  like  the  stream 

Born  of  clear  showers  and  the  mountain  dew, 

Close  under  snow-clad  summits  where  they  gleam 

Forever  pure  against  heaven's  orient  blue. 

Within  the  city's  shades  he  walked  at  last. 

Faint  and  more  faint  in  sad  recessional 

Down  the  dim  corridors  of  Time  outworn, 

A  chorus  ebbed  from  that  forsaken  past, 

A  hymn  of  glories  fled  beyond  recall 

With  the  lost  heights  and  splendor  of  life's  morn. 


70 


SONNET  IV 

UP  at  his  attic  sill  the  South  wind  came 

And  days  of  sun  and  storm  but  never  peace. 

Along  the  town's  tumultuous  arteries 

He  heard  the  heart-throbs  of  a  sentient  frame: 

Each  night  the  whistles  in  the  bay,  the  same 

Whirl  of  incessant  wheels  and  clanging  cars: 

For  smoke  that  half  obscured,  the  circling  stars 

Burnt  like  his  youth  with  but  a  sickly  flame. 

Up  to  his  attic  came  the  city  cries — 

The  throes  with  which  her  iron  sinews  heave — 

And  yet  forever  behind  prison  doors 

Welled  in  his  heart  and  trembled  in  his  eyes 

The  light  that  hangs  on  desert  hills  at  eve 

And  tints  the  sea  on  solitary  shores.  .  .  . 


71 


SONNET  V 

A  TIDE  of  beauty  with  returning  May 

Floods  the  fair  city;    from  warm  pavements  fume 

Odors  endeared;    down  avenues  in  bloom 

The  chestnut-trees  with  phallic  spires  are  gaye 

Over  the  terrace  flows  the  thronged  cafe; 

The  boulevards  are  streams  of  hurrying  sound; 

And  through  the  streets,  like  veins  when  they  abound, 

The  lust  for  pleasure  throbs  itself  away. 

Here  let  me  live,  here  let  me  still  pursue 

Phantoms  of  bliss  that  beckon  and  recede, — 

Thy  strange  allurements,  City  that  I  love, 

Maze  of  romance,  where  I  have  followed  too 

The  dream  Youth  treasures  of  its  dearest  need 

And  stars  beyond  thy  towers  bring  tidings  of. 


SONNET  VI 

GIVE  me  the  treble  ol  thy  horns  and  hoofs, 
The  ponderous  undertones  of  'bus  and  tram, 
A  garret  and  a  glimpse  across  the  roofs 
Of  clouds  blown  eastward  over  Notre  Dame, 
The  glad-eyed  streets  and  radiant  gatherings 
Where  I  drank  deep  the  bliss  of  being  young. 
The  strife  and  sweet  potential  flux  of  things 
I  sought  Youth's  dream  of  happiness  among! 
It  walks  here  aureoled  with  the  city-light, 
Forever  through  the  myriad-featured  mass 
Flaunting  not  far  its  fugitive  embrace, — 
Heard  sometimes  in  a  song  across  the  night, 
Caught  in  a  perfume  from  the  crowds  that  pass, 
And  when  love  yields  to  love  seen  face  to  face. 


73 


SONNET  VII 

To  me,  a  pilgrim  on  that  journey  bound 
Whose  stations  Beauty's  bright  examples  are, 
As  of  a  silken  city  famed  afar 
Over  the  sands  for  wealth  and  holy  ground, 
Came  the  report  of  one — a  woman  crowned 
With  all  perfection,  blemishless  and  high, 
As  the  full  moon  amid  the  moonlit  sky, 
With  the  world's  praise  and  wonder  clad  around, 
And  I  who  held  this  notion  of  success: 
To  leave  no  form  of  Nature's  loveliness 
Unworshipped,  if  glad  eyes  have  access  there, — 
Beyond  all  earthly  bounds  have  made  my  goal 
To  find  where  that  sweet  shrine  is  and  extol 
The  hand  that  triumphed  in  a  work  so  fair. 


74 


SONNET  VIII 

OFT  as  by  chance,  a  little  while  apart 

The  pall  of  empty,  loveless  hours  withdrawn, 

Sweet  Beauty,  opening  on  the  impoverished  heart, 

Beams  like  the  jewel  on  the  breast  of  dawn: 

Not  though  high  heaven  should  rend  would  deeper  awe 

Fill  me  than  penetrates  my  spirit  thus, 

Nor  all  those  signs  the  Patmian  prophet  saw 

Seem  a  new  heaven  and  earth  so  marvelous; 

But,  clad  thenceforth  in  iridescent  dyes, 

The  fair  world  glistens,  and  in  after  days 

The  memory  of  kind  lips  and  laughing  eyes 

Lives  in  my  step  and  lightens  all  my  face, — 

So  they  who  found  the  Earthly  Paradise 

Still  breathed,  returned,  of  that  sweet,  joyful  place. 


75 


SONNET  IX 

AMID  the  florid  multitude  her  face 

Was  like  the  full  moon  seen  behind  the  lace 

Of  orchard  boughs  where  clouded  blossoms  part 

When  Spring  shines  in  the  world  and  in  the  heart. 

As  the  full-moon-beams  to  the  ferny  floor 

Of  summer  woods  through  flower  and  foliage  pour, 

So  to  my  being's  innermost  recess 

Flooded  the  light  of  so  much  loveliness; 

She  held  as  in  a  vase  of  priceless  ware 

The  wine  that  over  arid  ways  and  bare 

My  youth  was  the  pathetic  thirsting  for, 

And  where  she  moved  the  veil  of  Nature  grew 

Diaphanous  and  that  radiance  mantled  through 

Which,  when  I  see,  I  tremble  and  adore. 


76 


SONNET  X 

A  SPLENDOR,  flamelike,  born  to  be  pursued, 

With  palms  extent  for  amorous  charity 

And  eyes  incensed  with  love  for  all  they  see, 

A  wonder  more  to  be  adored  than  wooed, 

On  whom  the  grace  of  conscious  womanhood 

Adorning  every  little  thing  she  does 

Sits  like  enchantment,  making  glorious 

A  careless  pose,  a  casual  attitude; 

Around  her  lovely  shoulders  mantle-wise 

Hath  come  the  realm  of  those  old  fabulous  queens 

Whose  storied  loves  are  Art's  rich  heritage, 

To  keep  alive  in  this  our  latter  age 

That  force  that  moving  through  sweet  Beauty's  means 

Lifts  up  Man's  soul  to  towering  enterprise. 


77 


SONNET  XI  * 

WHEN  among  creatures  fair  of  countenance 

Love  comes  enformed  in  such  proud  character, 

So  far  as  other  beauty  yields  to  her, 

So  far  the  breast  with  fiercer  longing  pants; 

I  bless  the  spot,  and  hour,  and  circumstance, 

That  wed  desire  to  a  thing  so  high, 

And  say,  Glad  soul,  rejoice,  for  thou  and  I 

Of  bliss  unpaired  are  made  participants; 

Hence  have  come  ardent  thoughts  and  waking  dreams 

That,  feeding  Fancy  from  so  sweet  a  cup, 

Leave  it  no  lust  for  gross  imaginings. 

Through  her  the  woman's  perfect  beauty  gleams 

That  while  it  gazes  lifts  the  spirit  up 

To  that  high  source  from  which  all  beauty  springsc 

*  A  paraphrase  of  Petrarca,  Quando  fra  Vatire  donne  .  .  . 


78 


SONNET  XII 

LIKE  as  a  dryad,  from  her  native  bole 
Coming  at  dusk,  when  the  dim  stars  emerge, 
To  a  slow  river  at  whose  silent  verge 
Tall  poplars  tremble  and  deep  grasses  roll, 
Come  thou  no  less  and,  kneeling  in  a  shoal 
Of  the  freaked  flag  and  meadow  buttercup, 
Bend  till  thine  image  from  the  pool  beam  up 
Arched  with  blue  heaven  like  an  aureole. 
See  how  adorable  in  fancy  then 
Lives  the  fair  face  it  mirrors  even  so, 
O  thou  whose  beauty  moving  among  men 
Is  like  the  wind's  way  on  the  woods  below, 
Filling  all  nature  where  its  pathway  lies 
With  arms  that  supplicate  and  trembling  sighs* 


79 


SONNET  XIII 

I  FANCIED,  while  you  stood  conversing  there, 
Superb,  in  every  attitude  a  queen, 
Her  ermine  thus  Boadicea  bare, 
So  moved  amid  the  multitude  Faustine. 
My  life,  whose  whole  religion  Beauty  is, 
Be  charged  with  sin  if  ever  before  yours 
A  lesser  feeling  crossed  my  mind  than  his 
Who  owning  grandeur  marvels  and  adores. 
Nay,  rather  in  my  dream-world's  ivory  tower 
I  made  your  image  the  high  pearly  sill, 
And  mounting  there  in  many  a  wistful  hour, 
Burdened  with  love,  I  trembled  and  was  still, 
Seeing  discovered  from  that  azure  height 
Remote,  untrod  horizons  of  delight. 


SONNET  XIV 

IT  may  be  for  the  world  of  weeds  and  tares 
And  dearth  in  Nature  of  sweet  Beauty's  rose 
That  oft  as  Fortune  from  ten  thousand  shows 
One  from  the  train  of  Love's  true  courtiers 
Straightway  on  him  who  gazes,  unawares, 
Deep  wonder  seizes  and  swift  trembling  grows, 
Reft  by  that  sight  of  purpose  and  repose, 
Hardly  its  weight  his  fainting  breast  upbears. 
Then  on  the  soul  from  some  ancestral  place 
Floods  back  remembrance  of  its  heavenly  birth, 
When,  in  the  light  of  that  serener  sphere, 
It  saw  ideal  beauty  face  to  face 
That  through  the  forms  of  this  our  meaner  Earth 
Shines  with  a  beam  less  steadfast  and  less  clear. 


81 


SONNET  XV 

ABOVE  the  ruin  of  God's  holy  place, 

Where  man-forsaken  lay  the  bleeding  rood, 

Whose  hands,  when  men  had  craved  substantial  food, 

Gave  not,  nor  folded  when  they  cried,  Embrace, 

I  saw  exalted  in  the  latter  days 

Her  whom  west  winds  with  natal  foam  bedewed, 

Wafted  toward  Cyprus,  lily-breasted,  nude, 

Standing  with  arms  out-stretched  and  flower-like  face. 

And,  sick  with  all  those  centuries  of  tears 

Shed  in  the  penance  for  factitious  woe, 

Once  more  I  saw  the  nations  at  her  feet, 

For  Love  shone  in  their  eyes,  and  in  their  ears 

Come  unto  me,  Love  beckoned  them,  for  lo ! 

The  breast  your  lips  abjured  is  still  as  sweet. 


82 


SONNET  XVI 

WHO  shall  invoke  her,  who  shall  be  her  priest, 

With  single  rites  the  common  debt  to  pay? 

On  some  green  headland  fronting  to  the  East 

Our  fairest  boy  shall  kneel  at  break  of  day. 

Naked,  uplifting  in  a  laden  tray 

New  milk  and  honey  and  sweet-tinctured  wine, 

Not  without  twigs  of  clustering  apple-spray 

To  wreath  a  garland  for  Our  Lady's  shrine. 

The  morning  planet  poised  above  the  sea 

Shall  drop  sweet  influence  through  her  drowsing  lid,' 

Dew-drenched,  his  delicate  virginity 

Shall  scarce  disturb  the  flowers  he  kneels  amid, 

That,  waked  so  lightly,  shall  lift  up  their  eyes, 

Cushion  his  knees,  and  nod  between  his  thighs. 


83 


KYRENAIKOS 

LAY  me  where  soft  Cyrene  rambles  down 

In  grove  and  garden  to  the  sapphire  sea; 

Twine  yellow  roses  for  the  drinker's  crown; 

Let  music  reach  and  fair  heads  circle  me, 

Watching  blue  ocean  where  the  white  sails  steer 

Fruit-laden  forth  or  with  the  wares  and  news 

Of  merchant  cities  seek  our  harbors  here, 

Careless  how  Corinth  fares,  how  Syracuse; 

But  here,  with  love  and  sleep  in  her  caress, 

Warm  night  shall  sink  and  utterly  persuade 

The  gentle  doctrine  Aristippus  bare, — 

Night-winds,  and  one  whose  white  youth's  loveliness, 

In  a  flowered  balcony  beside  me  laid, 

Dreams,  with  the  starlight  on  her  fragrant  hair. 


84 


ANTINOUS 

STRETCHED  on  a  sunny  bank  he  lay  at  rest, 

Ferns  at  his  elbow,  lilies  round  his  knees, 

With  sweet  flesh  patterned  where  the  cool  turf  pressed, 

Flowerlike  crept  o'er  with  emerald  aphides. 

Single  he  couched  there,  to  his  circling  flocks 

Piping  at  times  some  happy  shepherd's  tune, 

Nude,  with  the  warm  wind  in  his  golden  locks, 

And  arched  with  the  blue  Asian  afternoon. 

Past  him,  gorse-purpled,  to  the  distant  coast 

Rolled  the  clear  foothills.     There  his  white- walled  town, 

There,  a  blue  band,  the  placid  Euxine  lay. 

Beyond,  on  fields  of  azure  light  embossed 

He  watched  from  noon  till  dewy  eve  came  down 

The  summer  clouds  pile  up  and  fade  away. 


85 


VIVIEN 

HER  eyes  under  their  lashes  were  blue  pools 

Fringed  round  with  lilies;    her  bright  hair  unfurled 

Clothed  her  as  sunshine  clothes  the  summer  world. 

Her  robes  were  gauzes — gold  and  green  and  gules, 

All  furry  things  flocked  round  her,  from  her  hand 

Nibbling  their  foods  and  fawning  at  her  feet. 

Two  peacocks  watched  her  where  she  made  her  seat 

Beside  a  fountain  in  Broceliande. 

Sometimes  she  sang.  .  .  .     Whoever  heard  forgot 

Errand  and  aim,  and  knights  at  noontide  here, 

Riding  from  fabulous  gestes  beyond  the  seas, 

Would    follow,    tranced,    and    seek  .  .  .  and    find    her 

not  .  .  . 

But  wake  that  night,  lost,  by  some  woodland  mere, 
Powdered  with  stars  and  rimmed  with  silent  trees. 


86 


I  LOVED  .  .  . 

I  LOVED  illustrious  cities  and  the  crowds 
That  eddy  through  their  incandescent  nights. 
I  loved  remote  horizons  with  far  clouds 
Girdled,  and  fringed  about  with  snowy  heights. 
I  loved  fair  women,  their  sweet,  conscious  ways 
Of  wearing  among  hands  that  covet  and  plead 
The  rose  ablossom  at  the  rainbow's  base 
That  bounds  the  world's  desire  and  all  its  need. 
Nature  I  worshipped,  whose  fecundity 
Embraces  every  vision  the  most  fair, 
Of  perfect  benediction.     From  a  boy 
I  gloated  on  existence.     Earth  to  me 
Seemed  all-sufficient  and  my  sojourn  there 
One  trembling  opportunity  for  joy. 


87 


VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE  .  .  . 

I  CARE  not  that  one  listen  if  he  lives 

For  aught  but  life's  romance,  nor  puts  above 

All  life's  necessities  the  need  to  love, 

Nor  counts  his  greatest  wealth  what  Beauty  gives. 

But  sometime  on  an  afternoon  in  spring, 

When  dandelions  dot  the  fields  with  gold, 

And  under  rustling  shade  a  few  weeks  old 

'Tis  sweet  to  stroll  and  hear  the  bluebirds  sing, 

Do  you,  blond  head,  whom  beauty  and  the  power 

Of  being  young  and  winsome  have  prepared 

For  life's  last  privilege  that  really  pays, 

Make  the  companion  of  an  idle  hour 

These  relics  of  the  time  when  I  too  fared 

Across  the  sweet  fifth  lustrum  of  my  days. 


88 


WITH  A  COPY  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S   SONNETS 
ON  LEAVING  COLLEGE 

As  one  of  some  fat  tillage  dispossessed, 

Weighing  the  yield  of  these  four  faded  years, 

If  any  ask  what  fruit  seems  loveliest, 

What  lasting  gold  among  the  garnered  ears, — 

Ah,  then  I'll  say  what  hours  I  had  of  thine, 

Therein  I  reaped  Time's  richest  revenue, 

Read  in  thy  text  the  sense  of  David's  line, 

Through  thee  achieved  the  love  that  Shakespeare  knew0 

Take  then  his  book,  laden  with  mine  own  love 

As  flowers  made  sweeter  by  deep-drunken  rain, 

That  when  years  sunder  and  between  us  move 

Wide  waters,  and  less  kindly  bonds  constrain, 

Thou  may'st  turn  here,  dear  boy,  and  reading  see 

Some  part  of  what  thy  friend  once  felt  for  thee. 


89 


WRITTEN  IN  A  VOLUME  OF  THE   COMTESSE 
DE  NOAILLES 

BE  my  companion  under  cool  arcades 

That  frame  some  drowsy  street  and  dazzling  square 

Beyond  whose  flowers  and  palm-tree  promenades 

White  belfries  burn  in  the  blue  tropic  air. 

Lie  near  me  in  dim  forests  where  the  croon 

Of  wood-doves  sounds  and  moss-banked  water  flows, 

Or  musing  late  till  the  midsummer  moon 

Breaks  through  some  ruined  abbey's  empty  rose. 

Sweetest  of  those  to-day  whose  pious  hands 

Tend  the  sequestered  altar  of  Romance, 

Where  fewer  offerings  burn,  and  fewer  kneel, 

Pour  there  your  passionate  beauty  on  my  heart, 

And,  gladdening  such  solitudes,  impart 

How  sweet  the  fellowship  of  those  who  feel! 


90 


COUCY 

THE  rooks  aclamor  when  one  enters  here 
Startle  the  empty  towers  far  overhead; 
Through  gaping  walls  the  summer  fields  appear, 
Green,  tan,  or,  poppy-mingled,  tinged  with  red. 
The  courts  where  revel  rang  deep  grass  and  moss 
Cover,  and  tangled  vines  have  overgrown 
The  gate  where  banners  blazoned  with  a  cross 
Rolled  forth  to  toss  round  Tyre  and  Ascalon. 
Decay  consumes  it.     The  old  causes  fade. 
And  fretting  for  the  contest  many  a  heart 
Waits  their  Tyrtseus  to  chant  on  the  new. 
Oh,  pass  him  by  who,  in  this  haunted  shade 
Musing  enthralled,  has  only  this  much  art, 
To  love  the  things  the  birds  and  flowers  love  too. 


91 


TEZCOTZINCO 

THOUGH  thou  art  now  a  ruin  bare  and  cold, 

Thou  wert  sometime  the  garden  of  a  king. 

The  birds  have  sought  a  lovelier  place  to  sing. 

The  flowers  are  few.     It  was  not  so  of  old. 

It  was  not  thus  when  hand  in  hand  there  strolled 

Through  arbors  perfumed  with  undying  Spring 

Bare  bodies  beautiful,  brown,  glistening, 

Decked  with  green  plumes  and  rings  of  yellow  gold. 

Do  you  suppose  the  herdsman  sometimes  hears 

Vague  echoes  borne  beneath  the  moon's  pale  ray 

From  those  old,  old,  far-off,  forgotten  years? 

Who  knows?     Here  where  his  ancient  kings  held  sway 

He  stands.     Their  names  are  strangers  to  his  ears. 

Even  their  memory  has  passed  away. 


THE  OLD  LOWE  HOUSE,  STATEN  ISLAND 

ANOTHER  prospect  pleased  the  builder's  eye, 

And  Fashion  tenanted  (where  Fashion  wanes) 

Here  in  the  sorrowful  suburban  lanes 

When  first  these  gables  rose  against  the  sky. 

Relic  of  a  romantic  taste  gone  by, 

This  stately  monument  alone  remains, 

Vacant,  with  lichened  walls  and  window-panes 

Blank  as  the  windows  of  a  skull.     But  I, 

On  evenings  when  autumnal  winds  have  stirred 

In  the  porch- vines,  to  this  gray  oracle 

Have  laid  a  wondering  ear  and  oft-times  heard, 

As  from  the  hollow  of  a  stranded  shell, 

Old  voices  echoing  (or  my  fancy  erred) 

Things  indistinct,  but  not  insensible. 


ONEATA 

A  HILLTOP  sought  by  every  soothing  breeze 
That  loves  the  melody  of  murmuring  boughs, 
Cool  shades,  green  acreage,  and  antique  house 
Fronting  the  ocean  and  the  dawn;    than  these 
Old  monks  built  never  for  the  spirit's  ease 
Cloisters  more  calm — not  Cluny  nor  Clairvaux; 
Sweet  are  the  noises  from  the  bay  below, 
And  cuckoos  calling  in  the  tulip- trees. 
Here,  a  yet  empty  suitor  in  thy  train, 
Beloved  Poesy,  great  joy  was  mine 
To  while  a  listless  spell  of  summer  days, 
Happier  than  hoarder  in  each  evening's  gain, 
When  evenings  found  me  richer  by  one  line, 
One  verse  well  turned,  or  serviceable  phrase. 


ON  THE  CLIFFS,  NEWPORT 

TONIGHT  a  shimmer  of  gold  lies  mantled  o'er 

Smooth  lovely  Ocean.     Through  the  lustrous  gloom 

A.  savor  steals  from  linden  trees  in  bloom 

And  gardens  ranged  at  many  a  palace  door. 

Proud  walls  rise  here,  and,  where  the  moonbeams  pour 

Their  pale  enchantment  down  the  dim  coast-line, 

Terrace  and  lawn,  trim  hedge  and  flowering  vine, 

Crown  with  fair  culture  all  the  sounding  shore. 

How  sweet,  to  such  a  place,  on  such  a  night, 

From  halls  with  beauty  and  festival  a-glare, 

To  come  distract  and,  stretched  on  the  cool  turf, 

Yield  to  some  fond,  improbable  delight, 

While  the  moon,  reddening,  sinks,  and  all  the  air 

Sighs  with  the  muffled  tumult  of  the  surf! 


TO  ENGLAND  AT  THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE 
BALKAN  WAR 

A  CLOUD  has  lowered  that  shall  not  soon  pass  o'er. 

The  world  takes  sides:  whether  for  impious  aims 

With  Tyranny  whose  bloody  toll  enflames 

A  generous  people  to  heroic  war; 

Whether  with  Freedom,  stretched  in  her  own  gore, 

Whose  pleading  hands  and  suppliant  distress 

Still  offer  hearts  that  thirst  for  Righteousness 

A  glorious  cause  to  strike  or  perish  for. 

England,  which  side  is  thine?     Thou  hast  had  sons 

Would  shrink  not  from  the  choice  however  grim, 

Were  Justice  trampled  on  and  Courage  downed; 

Which  will  they  be — cravens  or  champions? 

Oh,  if  a  doubt  intrude,  remember  him 

Whose  death  made  Missolonghi  holy  ground. 


AT   THE    TOMB  OF  NAPOLEON  BEFORE    THE 
ELECTIONS  IN  AMERICA— NOVEMBER,  1912 

I  STOOD  beside  his  sepulchre  whose  fame, 
Hurled  over  Europe  once  on  bolt  and  blast, 
Now  glows  far  off  as  storm-clouds  overpast 
Glow  in  the  sunset  flushed  with  glorious  flame. 
Has  Nature  marred  his  mould?     Can  Art  acclaim 
No  hero  now,  no  man  with  whom  men  side 
As  with  their  hearts'  high  needs  personified? 
There  are  will  say,  One  such  our  lips  could  name; 
Columbia  gave  him  birth.     Him  Genius  most 
Gifted  to  rule.     Against  the  world's  great  man 
Lift  their  low  calumny  and  sneering  cries 
The  Pharisaic  multitude,  the  host 
Of  piddling  slanderers  whose  little  eyes 
Know  not  what  greatness  is  and  never  can. 


97 


THE  RENDEZVOUS 

HE  faints  with  hope  and  fear.     It  is  the  hour. 

Distant,  across  the  thundering  organ-swell, 
In  sweet  discord  from  the  cathedral-tower, 

Fall  the  faint  chimes  and  the  thrice-sequent  bell. 
Over  the  crowd  his  eye  uneasy  roves. 

He  sees  a  plume,  a  fur;  his  heart  dilates — 
Soars  .  .  .  and  then  sinks  again.     It  is  not  hers  he  loves 

She  will  not  come,  the  woman  that  he  waits. 

Braided  with  streams  of  silver  incense  rise 

The  antique  prayers  and  ponderous  antiphones. 
Gloria  Patri  echoes  to  the  skies; 

Nunc  et  in  scecula  the  choir  intones. 
He  marks  not  the  monotonous  refrain, 

The  priest  that  serves  nor  him  that  celebrates, 
But  ever  scans  the  aisle  for  his  blonde  head.  ...    In  vain ! 

She  will  not  come,  the  woman  that  he  waits. 

How  like  a  flower  seemed  the  perfumed  place 

Where  the  sweet  flesh  lay  loveliest  to  kiss; 
And  her  white  hands  in  what  delicious  ways, 

With  what  unfeigned  caresses,  answered  his! 
Each  tender  charm  intolerable  to  lose, 

Each  happy  scene  his  fancy  recreates. 
And  he  calls  out  her  name  and  spreads  his  arms  .  .  , 
No  use! 

She  will  not  come,  the  woman  that  he  waits. 

98 


But  the  long  vespers  close.     The  priest  on  high 

Raises  the  thing  that  Christ's  own  flesh  enforms; 
And  down  the  Gothic  nave  the  crowd  flows  by 

And  through  the  portal's  carven  entry  swarms. 
Maddened  he  peers  upon  each  passing  face 

Till  the  long  drab  procession  terminates. 
No  princess  passes  out  with  proud  majestic  pace. 

She  has  not  come,  the  woman  that  he  waits. 

Back  in  the  empty  silent  church  alone 

He  walks  with  aching  heart.     A  white-robed  boy 
Puts  out  the  altar-candles  one  by  one, 

Even  as  by  inches  darkens  all  his  joy. 
He  dreams  of  the  sweet  night  their  lips  first  met, 

And  groans — and  turns  to  leave — and  hesitates  .  .  , 
Poor  stricken  heart,  he  will,  he  can  not  fancy  yet 

She  will  not  come,  the  woman  that  he  waits. 

But  in  an  arch  where  deepest  shadows  fall 

He  sits  and  studies  the  old,  storied  panes, 
And  the  calm  crucifix  that  from  the  wall 

Looks  on  a  world  that  quavers  and  complains. 
Hopeless,  abandoned,  desolate,  aghast, 

On  modes  of  violent  death  he  meditates. 
And  the  tower-clock  tolls  five,  and  he  admits  at  last, 

She  will  not  come,  the  woman  that  he  waits. 


99 


Through  the  stained  rose  the  winter  daylight  dies, 

And  all  the  tide  of  anguish  unrepressed 
Swells  in  his  throat  and  gathers  in  his  eyes; 

He  kneels  and  bows  his  head  upon  his  breast, 
And  feigns  a  prayer  to  hide  his  burning  tears, 

While  the  satanic  voice  reiterates 
Tonight,  tomorrow,  nay,  nor  all  the  impending  years, 

She  will  not  come,  the  woman  that  he  waits. 

Fond,  fervent  heart  of  life's  enamored  spring, 

So  true,  so  confident,  so  passing  fair, 
That  thought  of  Love  as  some  sweet,  tender  thing, 

And  not  as  war,  red  tooth  and  nail  laid  bare, 
How  hi  that  hour  its  innocence  was  slain, 

How  from  that  hour  our  disillusion  dates, 
When  first  we  learned  thy  sense,  ironical  refrain, 

She  will  not  come,  the  woman  that  he  waits. 


100 


DO  YOU  REMEMBER  ONCE  . 


Do  you  remember  once,  in  Paris  of  glad  faces, 

The  night  we  wandered  off  under  the  third  moon's 

rays 

And,  leaving  far  behind  bright  streets  and  busy  places, 
Stood  where  the  Seine  flowed  down  between  its  quiet 
quais  ? 

The  city's  voice  was  hushed;  the  placid,  lustrous  waters 
Mirrored    the    walls    across    where    orange    windows 
burned. 

Out  of  the  starry  south  provoking  rumors  brought  us 
Far  promise  of  the  spring  already  northward  turned. 

And  breast  drew  near  to  breast,  and  round  its  soft  desire 
My  arm  uncertain  stole  and  clung  there  unrepelled. 

I  thought  that  nevermore  my  heart  would  hover  nigher 
To  the  last  flower  of  bliss  that  Nature's  garden  held. 

There,  in  your  beauty's  sweet  abandonment  to  pleasure, 
The  mute,  half-open  lips  and  tender,  wondering  eyes* 

I  saw  embodied  first  smile  back  on  me  the  treasure 
Long  sought  across  the  seas  and  back  of  summer  skies. 


101 


Dear  face,   when  courted  Death  shall  claim  my  limbs 

and  find  them 

Laid  in  some  desert  place,  alone  or  where  the  tides 
Of  war's  tumultuous  waves  on  the  wet  sands  behind  them 
Leave  rifts  of  gasping  life  when  their  red  flood  sub 
sides, 

Out  of  the  past's  remote  delirious  abysses 

Shine  forth  once  more  as  then  you  shone, — beloved 
head, 

Laid  back  in  ecstasy  between  our  blinding  kisses, 
Transfigured  with  the  bliss  of  being  so  coveted. 

And  my  sick  arms  will  part,  and  though  hot  fever  sear  it, 
My  mouth  will  curve  again  with  the  old,  tender  flame. 

And  darkness  will  come  down,  still  finding  in  my  spirit 
The  dream  of  your  brief  love,  and  on  my  lips  your 
name. 


102 


II 

You  loved  me  on  that  moonlit  night  long  since. 

You  were  my  queen  and  I  the  charming  prince 

Elected  from  a  world  of  mortal  men. 

You  loved  me  once.  .  .  .     What  pity  was  it,  then, 

You  loved  not  Love.  .  .  .     Deep  in  the  emerald  west, 

Like  a  returning  caravel  caressed 

By  breezes  that  load  all  the  ambient  airs 

With  clinging  fragrance  of  the  bales  it  bears 

From  harbors  where  the  caravans  come  down, 

I  see  over  the  roof-tops  of  the  town 

The  new  moon  back  again,  but  shall  not  see 

The  joy  that  once  it  had  in  store  for  me, 

Nor  know  again  the  voice  upon  the  stair, 

The  little  studio  in  the  candle-glare, 

And  all  that  makes  in  word  and  touch  and  glance 

The  bliss  of  the  first  nights  of  a  romance 

When  will  to  love  and  be  beloved  casts  out 

The  want  to  question  or  the  will  to  doubt. 

You  loved  me  once.  .  .  .     Under  the  western  seas 

The  pale  moon  settles  and  the  Pleiades. 

The  firelight  sinks;   outside  the  night-  winds  moan  — 

The  hour  advances,  and  I  sleep  alone.* 


ff€\dvva  ical  H\ijla8€S,  ntffffai  Se  j>i//cres,  irdpa  $'  tpxer  &pa  tyu  Se 
jj.6va  Karetdw.  —  SAPPHO. 


103 


Ill 

Farewell,  dear  heart,  enough  of  vain  despairing! 

If  I  have  erred  I  plead  but  one  excuse — 
The  jewel  were  a  lesser  joy  in  wearing 

That  cost  a  lesser  agony  to  lose. 

I  had  not  bid  for  beautifuller  hours 

Had  I  not  found  the  door  so  near  unsealed, 

Nor  hoped,  had  you  not  filled  my  arms  with  flowers, 
For  that  one  flower  that  bloomed  too  far  afield. 

If  I  have  wept,  it  was  because,  forsaken, 
I  felt  perhaps  more  poignantly  than  some 

The  blank  eternity  from  which  we  waken 
And  all  the  blank  eternity  to  come. 

And  I  betrayed  how  sweet  a  thing  and  tender 
(In  the  regret  with  which  my  lip  was  curled) 

Seemed  in  its  tragic,  momentary  splendor 
My  transit  through  the  beauty  of  the  world. 


104 


THE  BAYADERE 

FLAKED,  drifting  clouds  hide  not  the  full  moon's  rays 
More  than  her  beautiful  bright  limbs  were  hid 
By  the  light  veils  they  burned  and  blushed  amid, 
Skilled  to  provoke  in  soft,  lascivious  ways, 
And  there  was  invitation  in  her  voice 
And  laughing  lips  and  wonderful  dark  eyes, 
As  though  above  the  gates  of  Paradise 
Fair  verses  bade,  Be  welcome  and  rejoice! 

O'er  rugs  where  mottled  blue  and  green  and  red 
Blent  in  the  patterns  of  the  Orient  loom, 
Like  a  bright  butterfly  from  bloom  to  bloom, 
She  floated  with  delicious  arms  outspread. 
There  was  no  pose  she  took,  no  move  she  made, 
But  all  the  feverous,  love-envenomed  flesh 
Wrapped  round  as  in  the  gladiator's  mesh 
And  smote  as  with  his  triple-forked  blade. 

I  thought  that  round  her  sinuous  beauty  curled 

Fierce  exhalations  of  hot  human  love, — 

Around  her  beauty  valuable  above 

The  sunny  outspread  kingdoms  of  the  world; 

Flowing  as  ever  like  a  dancing  fire 

Flowed  her  belled  ankles  and  bejewelled  wrists, 

Around  her  beauty  swept  like  sanguine  mists 

The  nimbus  of  a  thousand  hearts'  desire. 


105 


EUD^MON 

O  HAPPINESS,  I  know  not  what  far  seas, 

Blue  hills  and  deep,  thy  sunny  realms  surround, 

That  thus  in  Music's  wistful  harmonies 
And  concert  of  sweet  sound 

A  rumor  steals,  from  some  uncertain  shore, 

Of  lovely  things  outworn  or  gladness  yet  in  store: 

Whether  thy  beams  be  pitiful  and  come, 
Across  the  sundering  of  vanished  years, 

From  childhood  and  the  happy  fields  of  home, 
Like  eyes  instinct  with  tears 

Felt  through  green  brakes  of  hedge  and  apple-bough 

Round  haunts  delightful  once,  desert  and  silent  now; 

Or  yet  if  prescience  of  unrealized  love 

Startle  the  breast  with  each  melodious  air, 

And  gifts  that  gentle  hands  are  donors  of 
Still  wait  intact  somewhere, 

Furled  up  all  golden  in  a  perfumed  place 

Within  the  folded  petals  of  forthcoming  days. 

Only  forever,  in  the  old  unrest 

Of  winds  and  waters  and  the  varying  year, 
A  litany  from  islands  of  the  blessed 

Answers,  Not  here  .  .  .  not  here! 
And  over  the  wide  world  that  wandering  cry 
Shall  lead  my  searching  heart  unsoothed  until  I  die 

106 


BROCELIANDE 

BROCELIANDE!   in   the   perilous   beauty   of   silence   and 

menacing  shade, 
Thou  art  set  on  the  shores  of  the  sea  down  the  haze  of 

horizons  untra veiled,  unscanned. 
Untroubled,  untouched  with  the  woes  of  this  world  are 

the  moon-marshalled  hosts  that  invade 

Broceliande. 

* 

Only  at  dusk,  when  lavender  clouds  in  the  orient  twilight 

disband, 
Vanishing  where  all  the  blue  afternoon  they  have  drifted 

in  solemn  parade, 
Sometimes  a  whisper  comes  down  on  the  wind  from  the 

valleys  of  Fairyland 

Sometimes  an  echo  most  mournful  and  faint  like  the 

horn  of  a  huntsman  strayed, 
Faint  and  forlorn,  half  drowned  in  the  murmur  of  foliage 

fitfully  fanned, 

Breathes  in  a  burden  of  nameless  regret  till  I  startle, 
disturbed  and  affray  ed: 

Broceliande — 
Broceliande — 
Broceliande. 


107 


LYONESSE 

IN  Lyonesse  was  beauty  enough,  men  say: 
Long  Summer  loaded  the  orchards  to  excess, 
And  fertile  lowlands  lengthening  far  away, 
In  Lyonesse. 

Came  a  term  to  that  land's  old  favoredness: 
Past  the  sea-walls,  crumbled  in  thundering  spray, 
Rolled  the  green  waves,  ravening,  merciless. 

Through  bearded  boughs  immobile  in  cool  decay, 
Where  sea-bloom  covers  corroding  palaces, 
The  mermaid  glides  with  a  curious  glance  to-day  w 
In  Lyonesse. 


108 


TITHONUS 

So  when  the  verdure  of  his  life  was  shed, 
With  all  the  grace  of  ripened  manlihead, 
And  on  his  locks,  but  now  so  lovable, 
Old  age  like  desolating  winter  fell, 
Leaving  them  white  and  flowerless  and  forlorn: 
Then  from  his  bed  the  Goddess  of  the  Morn 
Softly  withheld,  yet  cherished  him  no  less 
With  pious  works  of  pitying  tenderness; 
Till  when  at  length  with  vacant,  heedless  eyes, 
And  hoary  height  bent  down  none  otherwise 
Than  burdened  willows  bend  beneath  their  weight 
Of  snow  when  winter  winds  turn  temperate,— 
So  bowed  with  years — when  still  he  lingered  on: 
Then  to  the  daughter  of  Hyperion 
This  counsel  seemed  the  best:    for  she,  afar 
By  dove-gray  seas  under  the  morning  star, 
Where,  on  the  wide  world's  uttermost  extremes, 
Her  amber-walled,  auroral  palace  gleams, 
High  in  an  orient  chamber  bade  prepare 
An  everlasting  couch,  and  laid  him  there, 
And  leaving,  closed  the  shining  doors.     But  he, 
Deathless  by  Jove's  compassionless  decree, 
Found  not,  as  others  find,  a  dreamless  rest. 
There  wakeful,  with  half-waking  dreams  oppressed, 
Still  in  an  aural,  visionary  haze 
Float  round  him  vanished  forms  of  happier  days; 
Still  at  his  side  he  fancies  to  behold 

109 


The  rosy,  radiant  thing  beloved  of  old; 

And  oft,  as  over  dewy  meads  at  morn, 

Far  inland  from  a  sunrise  coast  is  borne 

The  drowsy,  muffled  moaning  of  the  sea, 

Even  so  his  voice  flows  on  unceasingly, — 

Lisping  sweet  names  of  passion  overblown, 

Breaking  with  dull,  persistent  undertone 

The  breathless  silence  that  forever  broods 

Round  those  colossal,  lustrous  solitudes. 

Times  change.     Man's  fortune  prospers,  or  it  falls. 

Change  harbors  not  in  those  eternal  halls 

And  tranquil  chamber  where  Tithonus  lies. 

But  through  his  window  there  the  eastern  skies 

Fall  palely  fair  to  the  dim  ocean's  end. 

There,  in  blue  mist  where  air  and  ocean  .blend, 

The  lazy  clouds  that  sail  the  wide  world  o'er 

Falter  and  turn  where  they  can  sail  no  more. 

There  singing  groves,  there  spacious  gardens  blow — 

Cedars  and  silver  poplars,  row  on  row, 

Through  whose  black  boughs  on  her  appointed  night? 

Flooding  his  chamber  with  enchanted  light, 

Lifts  the  full  moon's  immeasurable  sphere, 

Crimson  and  huge  and  wonderfully  near. 


110 


AN  ODE  TO  ANTARES 

AT  dusk,  when  lowlands  where  dark  waters  glide 

Robe  in  gray  mist,  and  through  the  greening  hills 

The  hoot-owl  calls  his  mate,  and  whippoorwills 

Clamor  from  every  copse  and  orchard-side, 

I  watched  the  red  star  rising  in  the  East, 

And  while  his  fellows  of  the  flaming  sign 

From  prisoning  daylight  more  and  more  released, 

Lift  their  pale  lamps,  and,  climbing  higher,  higher, 

Out  of  their  locks  the  waters  of  the  Line 

Shaking  in  clouds  of  phosphorescent  fire, 

Rose  in  the  splendor  of  their  curving  flight, 

Their  dolphin  leap  across  the  austral  night, 

From  windows  southward  opening  on  the  sea 

What  eyes,  I  wondered,  might  be  watching,  too, 

Orbed  in  some  blossom-laden  balcony. 

Where,  from  the  garden  to  the  rail  above, 

As  though  a  lover's  greeting  to  his  love 

Should  borrow  body  and  form  and  hue 

And  tower  in  torrents  of  floral  flame, 

The  crimson  bougainvillea  grew, 

What  starlit  brow  uplifted  to  the  same 

Majestic  regress  of  the  summering  sky, 

What  ultimate  thing — hushed,  holy,  throned  as  high 

Above  the  currents  that  tarnish  and  profane 

As  silver  summits  are  whose  pure  repose 

No  curious  eyes  disclose 

Nor  any  footfalls  stain, 

111 


But  round  their  beauty  on  azure  evenings 
Only  the  oreads  go  on  gauzy  wings, 
Only  the  oreads  troop  with  dance  and  song 
And  airy  beings  in  rainbow  mists  who  throng 
Out  of  those  wonderful  worlds  that  lie  afar 
Betwixt  the  outmost  cloud  and  the  nearest  star. 

Like  the  moon,  sanguine  in  the  orient  night 

Shines  the  red  flower  in  her  beautiful  hair. 

Her  breasts  are  distant  islands  of  delight 

Upon  a  sea  where  all  is  soft  and  fair. 

Those  robes  that  make  a  silken  sheath 

For  each  lithe  attitude  that  flows  beneath, 

Shrouding  in  scented  folds  sweet  warmths  and  tumid 

flowers, 

Call  them  far  clouds  that  half  emerge 
Beyond  a  sunset  ocean's  utmost  verge, 
Hiding  in  purple  shade  and  downpour  of  soft  showers 
Enchanted  isles  by  mortal  foot  untrod, 
And  there  in  humid  dells  resplendent  orchids  nod; 
There  always  from  serene  horizons  blow 
Soul-easing  gales  and  there  all  spice-trees  grow 
That  Phoenix  robbed  to  line  his  fragrant  nest 
Each  hundred  years  in  Araby  the  Blest. 

Star  of  the  South  that  now  through  orient  mist 
At  nightfall  off  Tampico  or  Belize 
Greetest  the  sailor  rising  from  those  seas 
Where  first  in  me,  a  fond  romanticist, 


The  tropic  sunset's  bloom  on  cloudy  piles 

Cast  out  industrious  cares  with  dreams  of  fabulous  isles — 

Thou  lamp  of  the  swart  lover  to  his  tryst, 

O'er  planted  acres  at  the  jungle's  rim 

Reeking  with  orange-flower  and  tuberose, 

Dear  to  his  eyes  thy  ruddy  splendor  glows 

Among  the  palms  where  beauty  waits  for  him; 

Bliss  too  thou  bringst  to  our  greening  North, 

Red  scintillant  through  cherry-blossom  rifts, 

Herald  of  summer-heat,  and  all  the  gifts 

And  all  the  joys  a  summer  can  bring  forth 

Be  thou  my  star,  for  I  have  made  my  aim 
To  follow  loveliness  till  autumn-strown 
Sunder  the  sinews  of  this  flower-like  frame 
As  rose-leaves  sunder  when  the  bud  is  blown. 
Ay,  sooner  spirit  and  sense  disintegrate 
Than  reconcilement  to  a  common  fate 
Strip  the  enchantment  from  a  world  so  dressed 
In  hues  of  high  romance.     I  cannot  rest 
While  aught  of  beauty  in  any  path  untrod 
Swells  into  bloom  and  spreads  sweet  charms  abroad 
Unworshipped  of  my  love.     I  cannot  see 
In  Life's  profusion  and  passionate  brevity 
How  hearts  enamored  of  life  can  strain  too  much 
In  one  long  tension  to  hear,  to  see,  to  touch. 
Now  on  each  rustling  night-wind  from  the  South 
Far  music  calls;    beyond  the  harbor  mouth 
Each  outbound  argosy  with  sail  unfurled 

113 


May  point  the  path  through  this  fortuitous  world 

That  holds  the  heart  from  its  desire.     Away ! 

Where  tinted  coast-towns  gleam  at  close  of  day, 

Where  squares  are  sweet  with  bells,  or  shores  thick  set 

With  bloom  and  bower,  with  mosque  and  minaret. 

Blue  peaks  loom  up  beyond  the  coast-plains  here, 

White  roads  wind  up  the  dales  and  disappear, 

By  silvery  waters  in  the  plains  afar 

Glimmers  the  inland  city  like  a  star, 

With  gilded  gates  and  sunny  spires  ablaze 

And  burnished  domes  half-seen  through  luminous  hazes 

Lo,  with  what  opportunity  Earth  teems ! 

How  like  a  fair  its  ample  beauty  seems ! 

Fluttering  with  flags  its  proud  pavilions  rise: 

What  bright  bazars,  what  marvelous  merchandise, 

Down  seething  alleys  what  melodious  din, 

What  clamor  importuning  from  every  booth ! 

At  Earth's  great  market  where  Joy  is  trafficked  in 

Buy  while  thy  purse  yet  swells  with  golden  Youth! 


114 


TRANSLATIONS 


DANTE.    INFERNO,  CANTO  XXVI 

FLORENCE,  rejoice !     For  thou  o'er  land  and  sea 
So  spread'st  thy  pinions  that  the  fame  of  thee 
Hath  reached  no  less  into  the  depths  of  Hell. 
So  noble  were  the  five  I  found  to  dwell 
Therein — thy  sons — whence  shame  accrues  to  me 
And  no  great  praise  is  thine;  but  if  it  be 
That  truth  unveil  in  dreamings  before  dawn, 
Then  is  the  vengeful  hour  not  far  withdrawn 
When  Prato  shall  exult  within  her  walls 
To  see  thy  suffering.     Whate'er  befalls, 
Let  it  come  soon,  since  come  it  must,  for  later, 
Each  year  would  see  my  grief  for  thee  the  greater. 

We  left;  and  once  more  up  the  craggy  side 
By  the  blind  steps  of  our  descent,  my  guide, 
Remounting,  drew  me  on.     So  we  pursued 
The  rugged  path  through  that  steep  solitude, 
Where  rocks  and  splintered  fragments  strewed  the  land 
So  thick,  that  foot  availed  not  without  hand. 
Grief  filled  me  then,  and  still  great  sorrow  stirs 
My  heart  as  oft  as  memory  recurs 
To  what  I  saw;  that  more  and  more  I  rein 
My  natural  powers,  and  curb  them  lest  they  strain 
Where  Virtue  guide  not, — that  if  some  good  star, 
Or  better  thing,  have  made  them  what  they  are, 
That  good  I  may  not  grudge,  nor  turn  to  ill. 


117 


As  when,  reclining  on  some  verdant  hill — 
What  season  the  hot  sun  least  veils  his  power 
That  lightens  all,  and  in  that  gloaming  hour 
The  fly  resigns  to  the  shrill  gnat — even  then, 
As  rustic,  looking  down,  sees,  o'er  the  glen, 
Vineyard,  or  tilth  where  lies  his  husbandry, 
Fireflies  innumerable  sparkle:  so  to  me, 
Come  where  its  mighty  depth  unfolded,  straight 
With  flames  no  fewer  seemed  to  scintillate 
The  shades  of  the  eighth  pit.     And  as  to  him 
Whose  wrongs  the  bears  avenged,  dim  and  more  dim 
Elijah's  chariot  seemed,  when  to  the  skies 
Uprose  the  heavenly  steeds;  and  still  his  eyes 
Strained,  following  them,  till  naught  remained  in  view 
But  flame,  like  a  thin  cloud  against  the  blue: 
So  here,  the  melancholy  gulf  within, 
Wandered  these  flames,  concealing  each  its  sin, 
Yet  each,  a  fiery  integument, 
Wrapped  round  a  sinner. 

On  the  bridge  intent, 

Gazing  I  stood,  and  grasped  its  flinty  side, 
Or  else,  unpushed,  had  fallen.     And  my  guide, 
Observing  me  so  moved,  spake,  saying:     "Behold 
Where  swathed  each  in  his  unconsuming  fold, 
The  spirits  lie  confined."     Whom  answering, 
"Master,"  I  said,  "thy  words  assurance  bring 
To  that  which  I  already  had  supposed; 
And  I  was  fain  to  ask  who  lies  enclosed 

118 


In  the  embrace  of  that  dividing  fire, 

Which  seems  to  curl  above  the  fabled  pyre, 

Where  with  his  twin-born  brother,  fiercely  hated, 

Eteocles  was  laid."     He  answered,  "Mated 

In  punishment  as  once  in  wrath  they  were, 

Ulysses  there  and  Diomed  incur 

The  eternal  pains;  there  groaning  they  deplore 

The  ambush  of  the  horse,  which  made  the  door 

For  Rome's  imperial  seed  to  issue:  there 

In  anguish  too  they  wail  the  fatal  snare 

Whence  dead  Deidamia  still  must  grieve, 

Reft  of  Achilles;  likewise  they  receive 

Due  penalty  for  the  Palladium." 

"Master,"  I  said,  "if  in  that  martyrdom 

The  power  of  human  speech  may  still  be  theirs, 

I  pray — and  think  it  worth  a  thousand  prayers — 

That,  till  this  horned  flame  be  come  more  nigh, 

We  may  abide  here;  for  thou  seest  that  I 

With  great  desire  incline  to  it."     And  he: 

"Thy  prayer  deserves  great  praise;  which  willingly 

I  grant;  but  thou  refrain  from  speaking;  leave 

That  task  to  me;  for  fully  I  conceive 

What  thing  thou  wouldst,  and  it  might  fall  perchance 

That  these,  being  Greeks,  would  scorn  thine  utterance." 

So  when  the  flame  had  come  where  time  and  place 
Seemed  not  unfitting  to  my  guide  with  grace 
To  question,  thus  he  spoke  at  my  desire: 
"O  ye  that  are  two  souls  within  one  fire, 

119 


If  in  your  eyes  some  merit  I  have  won — 
Merit,  or  more  or  less — for  tribute  done 
When  in  the  world  I  framed  my  lofty  verse: 
Move  not;  but  fain  were  we  that  one  rehearse 
By  what  strange  fortunes  to  his  death  he  came.' 
The  elder  crescent  of  the  antique  flame 
Began  to  wave,  as  in  the  upper  air 
A  flame  is  tempest-tortured,  here  and  there 
Tossing  its  angry  height,  and  in  its  sound 
As  human  speech  it  suddenly  had  found, 
Rolled  forth  a  voice  of  thunder,  saying:  "When, 
The  twelve-month  past  in  Circe's  halls,  again 
I  left  Gaeta's  strand  (ere  thither  came 
^Eneas,  and  had  given  it  that  name) 
Not  love  of  son,  nor  filial  reverence, 
Nor  that  affection  that  might  recompense 
The  weary  vigil  of  Penelope, 
Could  so  far  quench  the  hot  desire  in  me 
To  prove  more  wonders  of  the  teeming  earth, — 
Of  human  frailty  and  of  manly  worth. 
In  one  small  bark,  and  with  the  faithful  band 
That  all  awards  had  shared  of  Fortune's  hand, 
I  launched  once  more  upon  the  open  main. 
Both  shores  I  visited  as  far  as  Spain, — 
Sardinia,  and  Morocco,  and  what  more 
The  midland  sea  upon  its  bosom  wore. 
The  hour  of  our  lives  was  growing  late 
When  we  arrived  before  that  narrow  strait 
Where  Hercules  had  set  his  bounds  to  show 

120 


That   there   Man's   foot   shall   pause,   and    further 

none  shall  go. 

Borne  with  the  gale  past  Seville  on  the  right, 
And  on  the  left  now  swept  by  Ceuta's  site, 
'Brothers,'  I  cried,  'that  into  the  far  West 
Through  perils  numberless  are  now  addressed, 
In  this  brief  respite  that  our  mortal  sense 
Yet  hath,  shrink  not  from  new  experience; 
But  sailing  still  against  the  setting  sun, 
Seek  we  new  worlds  where  Man  has  never  won 
Before  us.     Ponder  your  proud  destinies: 
Born  were  ye  not  like  brutes  for  swinish  ease, 
But  virtue  and  high  knowledge  to  pursue.' 
My  comrades  with  such  zeal  did  I  imbue 
By  these  brief  words,  that  scarcely  could  I  then 
Have  turned  them  from  their  purpose;    so  again 
We  set  out  poop  against  the  morning  sky, 
And  made  our  oars  as  wings  wherewith  to  fly 
Into  the  Unknown.     And  ever  from  the  right 
Our  course  deflecting,  in  the  balmy  night 
All  southern  stars  we  saw,  and  ours  so  low, 
That  scarce  above  the  sea-marge  it  might  show. 
So  five  revolving  periods  the  soft, 
Pale  light  had  robbed  of  Cynthia,  and  as  oft 
Replenished  since  our  start,  when  far  and  dim 
Over  the  misty  ocean's  utmost  rim, 
Rose  a  great  mountain,  that  for  very  height 
Passed  any  I  had  seen.     Boundless  delight 
Filled  us — alas,  and  quickly  turned  to  dole: 
121 


For,  springing  from  our  scarce-discovered  goal, 
A  whirlwind  struck  the  ship;    in  circles  three 
It  whirled  us  helpless  in  the  eddying  sea; 
High  on  the  fourth  the  fragile  stern  uprose, 
The  bow  drove  down,  and,  as  Another  chose, 
Over  our  heads  we  heard  the  surging  billows  close.' 


ARIOSTO.    ORLANDO  FURIOSO,  CANTO  X,  91-99 

RUGGIERO,  to  amaze  the  British  host, 

And  wake  more  wonder  in  their  wondering  ranks, 

The  bridle  of  his  winged  courser  loosed, 

And  clapped  his  spurs  into  the  creature's  flanks; 

High  in  the  air,  even  to  the  topmost  banks 

Of  crudded  cloud,  uprose  the  flying  horse, 

And  now  above  the  Welsh,  and  now  the  Manx, 

And  now  across  the  sea  he  shaped  his  course, 

Till  gleaming  far  below  lay  Erin's  emerald  shores. 

There  round  Hibernia's  fabled  realm  he  coasted, 
Where  the  old  saint  had  left  the  holy  cave, 
Sought  for  the  famous  virtue  that  it  boasted 
To  purge  the  sinful  visitor  and  save. 
Thence  back  returning  over  land  and  wave, 
Ruggiero  came  where  the  blue  currents  flow, 
The  shores  of  Lesser  Brittany  to  lave, 
And,  looking  down  while  sailing  to  and  fros 
He  saw  Angelica  chained  to  the  rock  below. 

'Twas  on  the  Island  of  Complaint — well  named, 
For  there  to  that  inhospitable  shore, 
A  savage  people,  cruel  and  untamed, 
Brought  the  rich  prize  of  many  a  hateful  war. 
To  feed  a  monster  that  bestead  them  sore, 


123 


They  of  fair  ladies  those  that  loveliest  shone, 

Of  tender  maidens  they  the  tenderest  bore, 

And,  drowned  in  tears  and  making  piteous  moan, 

Left  for  that  ravening  beast,  chained  on  the  rocks  alone. 

Thither  transported  by  enchanter's  art, 

Angelica  from  dreams  most  innocent 

(As  the  tale  mentioned  in  another  part) 

Awoke,  the  victim  for  that  sad  event. 

Beauty  so  rare,  nor  birth  so  excellent, 

Nor  tears  that  make  sweet  Beauty  lovelier  still, 

Could  turn  that  people  from  their  harsh  intent. 

Alas,  what  temper  is  conceived  so  ill 

But,  Pity  moving  not,  Love's  soft  enthralment  will? 

On  the  cold  granite  at  the  ocean's  rim 

These  folk  had  chained  her  fast  and  gone  their  way; 

Fresh  in  the  softness  of  each  delicate  limb 

The  pity  of  their  bruising  violence  lay. 

Over  her  beauty,  from  the  eye  of  day 

To  hide  its  pleading  charms,  no  veil  was  thrown. 

Only  the  fragments  of  the  salt  sea-spray 

Rose  from  the  churning  of  the  waves,  wind-blown, 

To  dash  upon  a  whiteness  creamier  than  their  own. 

Carved  out  of  candid  marble  without  flaw, 
Or  alabaster  blemishless  and  rare, 
Ruggiero  might  have  fancied  what  he  saw, 
For  statue-like  it  seemed,  and  fastened  there 

124 


By  craft  of  cunningest  artificer; 

Save  in  the  wistful  eyes  Ruggiero  thought 

A  teardrop  gleamed,  and  with  the  rippling  hair 

The  ocean  breezes  played  as  if  they  sought 

In  its  loose  depths  to  hide  that  which  her  hand  might  not. 

Pity  and  wonder  and  awakening  love 
Strove  in  the  bosom  of  the  Moorish  Knight. 
Down  from  his  soaring  in  the  skies  above 
He  urged  the  tenor  of  his  courser's  flight. 
Fairer  with  every  foot  of  lessening  height 
Shone  the  sweet  prisoner.     With  tightening  reins 
He  drew  more  nigh,  and  gently  as  he  might: 
"O  lady,  worthy  only  of  the  chains 
With  which  his  bounden  slaves  the  God  of  Love  con 
strains, 

"And  least  for  this  or  any  ill  designed, 

Oh,  what  unnatural  and  perverted  race 

Could  the  sweet  flesh  with  flushing  stricture  bind, 

And  leave  to  suffer  in  this  cold  embrace 

That  the  warm  arms  so  hunger  to  replace?" 

Into  the  damsel's  cheeks  such  color  flew 

As  by  the  alchemy  of  ancient  days 

If  whitest  ivory  should  take  the  hue 

Of  coral  where  it  blooms  deep  in  the  liquid  blue. 


125 


Nor  yet  so  tightly  drawn  the  cruel  chains 

Clasped  the  slim  ankles  and  the  wounded  hands, 

But  with  soft,  cringing  attitudes  in  vain 

She  strove  to  shield  her  from  that  ardent  glance. 

So,  clinging  to  the  walls  of  some  old  manse, 

The  rose-vine  strives  to  shield  her  tender  flowers, 

When  the  rude  wind,  as  autumn  weeks  advance, 

Beats  on  the  walls  and  whirls  about  the  towers 

And  spills  at  every  blast  her  pride  in  piteous  showers. 

And  first  for  choking  sobs  she  might  not  speak, 

And  then,  "Alas!"  she  cried,  "ah,  woe  is  me!" 

And  more  had  said  in  accents  faint  and  weak, 

Pleading  for  succor  and  sweet  liberty. 

But  hark !  across  the  wide  ways  of  the  sea 

Rose  of  a  sudden  such  a  fierce  affray 

That  any  but  the  brave  had  turned  to  flee. 

Ruggiero,  turning,  looked.     To  his  dismay, 

Lo,  where  the  monster  came  to  claim  his  quivering  prey ! 


126 


ON   A    THEME    IN    THE    GREEK   ANTHOLOGY 

THY  petals  yet  are  closely  curled, 

Rose  of  the  world, 
Around  their  scented,  golden  core; 
Nor  yet  has  Summer  purpled  o'er 
Thy  tender  clusters  that  begin 

To  swell  within 
The  dewy  vine-leaves'  early  screen 

Of  sheltering  green. 

O  hearts  that  are  Love's  helpless  prey, 

While  yet  you  may, 
Fly,  ere  the  shaft  is  on  the  string! 
The  fire  that  now  is  smouldering 
Shall  be  the  conflagration  soon 

Whose  paths  are  strewn 
With  torment  of  blanched  lips  and  eyes 

That  agonize. 


127 


AFTER  AN  EPIGRAM  OF  CLEMENT  MAROT 

THE  lad  I  was  I  longer  now 
Nor  am  nor  shall  be  evermore. 
Spring's  lovely  blossoms  from  my  brow 
Have  shed  their  petals  on  the  floor. 
Thou,  Love,  hast  been  my  lord,  thy  shrine 
Above  all  gods'  best  served  by  me. 
Dear  Love,  could  life  again  be  mine 
How  bettered  should  that  service  be ! 


128 


LAST   POEMS 
1916 


THE  AISNE   (1914-15) 

WE  first  saw  fire  on  the  tragic  slopes 

Where  the  flood-tide  of  France's  early  gain, 

Big  with  wrecked  promise  and  abandoned  hopes, 
Broke  in  a  surf  of  blood  along  the  Aisne. 

The  charge  her  heroes  left  us,  we  assumed, 
What,  dying,  they  reconquered,  we  preserved, 

In  the  chill  trenches,  harried,  shelled,  entombed, 
Winter  came  down  on  us,  but  no  man  swerved. 

Winter  came  down  on  us.     The  low  clouds,  torn 
In  the  stark  branches  of  the  riven  pines, 

Blurred  the  white  rockets  that  from  dusk  till  morn 
Traced  the  wide  curve  of  the  close-grappling  lines, 

In  ram,  and  fog  that  on  the  withered  hill 

Froze  before  dawn,  the  lurking  foe  drew  down; 

Or  light  snows  fell  that  made  forlorner  still 
The  ravaged  country  and  the  ruined  town; 

Or  the  long  clouds  would  end.     Intensely  fair, 
The  winter  constellations  blazing  forth — 

Perseus,  the  Twins,  Orion,  the  Great  Bear — 
Gleamed  on  our  bayonets  pointing  to  the  north,, 


131 


And  the  lone  sentinel  would  start  and  soar 
On  wings  of  strong  emotion  as  he  knew 

That  kinship  with  the  stars  that  only  War 
Is  great  enough  to  lift  man's  spirit  to. 

And  ever  down  the  curving  front,  aglow 
With  the  pale  rockets'  intermittent  light, 

He  heard,  like  distant  thunder,  growl  and  grow 
The  rumble  of  far  battles  in  the  night, — 

Rumors,  reverberant,  indistinct,  remote, 

Borne  from  red  fields  whose  martial  names  have  won 
The  power  to  thrill  like  a  far  trumpet-note, — 

Vic,  Vailly,  Soupir,  Hurtebise,  Craonne  .  .  . 

Craonne,  before  thy  cannon-swept  plateau, 

Where  like  sere  leaves  lay  strewn  September's  dead, 
I  found  for  all  dear  things  I  forfeited 

A  recompense  I  would  not  now  forego. 

For  that  high  fellowship  was  ours  then 

With  those  who,  championing  another's  good, 
More  than  dull  Peace  or  its  poor  votaries  could, 

Taught  us  the  dignity  of  being  men. 

There  we  drained  deeper  the  deep  cup  of  life, 
And  on  sublimer  summits  came  to  learn, 
After  soft  things,  the  terrible  and  stern, 

After  sweet  Love,  the  majesty  of  Strife; 

132 


There  where  we  faced  under  those  frowning  heights 
The  blast  that  maims,  the  hurricane  that  kills; 
There  where  the  watchlights  on  the  winter  hills 

Flickered  like  balefire  through  inclement  nights; 

There  where,  firm  links  in  the  unyielding  chain, 
Where  fell  the  long-planned  blow  and  fell  in  vain — 

Hearts  worthy  of  the  honor  and  the  trial, 
We  helped  to  hold  the  lines  along  the  Aisne. 


133 


CHAMPAGNE,   1914-15 

IN  the  glad  revels,  in  the  happy  fetes, 

When  cheeks  are  flushed,  and  glasses  gilt  and  pearled 
With  the  sweet  wine  of  France  that  concentrates 

The  sunshine  and  the  beauty  of  the  world, 

Drink  sometimes,  you  whose  footsteps  yet  may  tread 
The  undisturbed,  delightful  paths  of  Earth, 

To  those  whose  blood,  in  pious  duty  shed, 

Hallows  the  soil  where  that  same  wine  had  birth. 

Here,  by  devoted  comrades  laid  away, 

Along  our  lines  they  slumber  where  they  fell, 

Beside  the  crater  at  the  Ferme  d'Alger 
And  up  the  bloody  slopes  of  La  Pompelle, 

And  round  the  city  whose  cathedral  towers 

The  enemies  of  Beauty  dared  profane, 
And  in  the  mat  of  multicolored  flowers 

That  clothe  the  sunny  chalk-fields  of  Champagne. 

Under  the  little  crosses  where  they  rise 

The  soldier  rests.     Now  round  him  undismayed 

The  cannon  thunders,  and  at  night  he  lies 
At  peace  beneath  the  eternal  fusillade.  .  . 


134 


That  other  generations  might  possess — 

From  shame  and  menace  free  in  years  to  come — 

A  richer  heritage  of  happiness, 

He  marched  to  that  heroic  martyrdom. 

Esteeming  less  the  forfeit  that  he  paid 

Than  undishonored  that  his  flag  might  float 

Over  the  towers  of  liberty,  he  made 

His  breast  the  bulwark  and  his  blood  the  moat. 

Obscurely  sacrificed,  his  nameless  tomb, 
Bare  of  the  sculptor's  art,  the  poet's  lines, 

Summer  shall  flush  with  poppy-fields  in  bloom, 
And  Autumn  yellow  with  maturing  vines. 

There  the  grape-pickers  at  their  harvesting 

Shall  lightly  tread  and  load  their  wicker  trays, 

Blessing  his  memory  as  they  toil  and  sing 
In  the  slant  sunshine  of  October  days.  .  .  . 

I  love  to  think  that  if  my  blood  should  be 
So  privileged  to  sink  where  his  has  sunk, 

I  shall  not  pass  from  Earth  entirely, 

But  when  the  banquet  rings,  when  healths  are  drunk, 


135 


And  faces  that  the  joys  of  living  fill 

Glow  radiant  with  laughter  and  good  cheer, 

In  beaming  cups  some  spark  of  me  shall  still 
Brim  toward  the  lips  that  once  I  held  so  dear. 

So  shall  one  coveting  no  higher  plane 

Than  nature  clothes  in  color  and  flesh  and  tone, 

Even  from  the  grave  put  upward  to  attain 

The  dreams  youth  cherished  and  missed  and  might 
have  known; 

And  that  strong  need  that  strove  unsatisfied 
Toward  earthly  beauty  in  all  forms  it  wore, 

Not  death  itself  shall  utterly  divide 

From  the  beloved  shapes  it  thirsted  for. 

Alas,  how  many  an  adept  for  whose  arms 
Life  held  delicious  offerings  perished  here, 

How  many  in  the  prime  of  all  that  charms, 

Crowned  with  all  gifts  that  conquer  and  endear ! 

Honor  them  not  so  much  with  tears  and  flowers, 
But  you  with  whom  the  sweet  fulfilment  lies, 

Where  in  the  anguish  of  atrocious  hours 

Turned  their  last  thoughts  and  closed  their  dying  eyes, 


136 


Rather  when  music  on  bright  gatherings  lays 
Its  tender  spell,  and  joy  is  uppermost, 

Be  mindful  of  the  men  they  were,  and  raise 
Your  glasses  to  them  in  one  silent  toast. 

Drink  to  them — amorous  of  dear  Earth  as  well, 
They  asked  no  tribute  lovelier  than  this — 

And  in  the  wine  that  ripened  where  they  fell, 
Oh,  frame  your  lips  as  though  it  were  a  kiss. 

CHAMPAGNE,  FRANCE,  July,  1915. 


137 


THE  HOSTS 

PURGED,  with  the  life  they  left,  of  all 
That  makes  life  paltry  and  mean  and  small, 
In  their  new  dedication  charged 
With  something  heightened,  enriched,  enlarged, 
That  lends  a  light  to  their  lusty  brows 
And  a  song  to  the  rhythm  of  their  tramping  feet, 
These  are  the  men  that  have  taken  vows, 
These  are  the  hardy,  the  flower,  the  elite, — 
These  are  the  men  that  are  moved  no  more 
By  the  will  to  traffic  and  grasp  and  store 
And  ring  with  pleasure  and  wealth  and  love 
The  circles  that  self  is  the  center  of; 
But  they  are  moved  by  the  powers  that  force 
The  sea  forever  to  ebb  and  rise, 
That  hold  Arcturus  in  his  course, 
And  marshal  at  noon  in  tropic  skies 
The  clouds  that  tower  on  some  snow-capped  chain 
And  drift  out  over  the  peopled  plain. 
They  are  big  with  the  beauty  of  cosmic  things. 
Mark  how  their  columns  surge!     They  seem 
To  follow  the  goddess  with  outspread  wings 
That  points  toward  Glory,  the  soldier's  dream. 
With  bayonets  bare  and  flags  unfurled, 
They  scale  the  s»iyimits  of  the  world 
And  fade  on  the  farthest  golden  height 
In  fair  horizons  full  of  light. 


133 


Comrades  in  arms  there — friend  or  foe — 
That  trod  the  perilous,  toilsome  trail 
Through  a  world  of  ruin  and  blood  and  woe 
In  the  years  of  the  great  decision — hail ! 
Friend  or  foe,  it  shall  matter  nought; 
This  only  matters,  in  fine:  we  fought. 
For  we  were  young  and  in  love  or  strife 
Sought  exultation  and  craved  excess: 
To  sound  the  wildest  debauch  in  life 
We  staked  our  youth  and  its  loveliness. 
Let  idlers  argue  the  right  and  wrong 
And  weigh  what  merit  our  causes  had. 
Putting  our  faith  in  being  strong- 
Above  the  level  of  good  and  bad — 
For  us,  we  battled  and  burned  and  killed 
Because  evolving  Nature  willed, 
And  it  was  our  pride  and  boast  to  be 
The  instruments  of  Destiny. 
There  was  a  stately  drama  writ 
By  the  hand  that  peopled  the  earth  and  air 
And  set  the  stars  in  the  infinite 
And  made  night  gorgeous  and  morning  fair, 
And  all  that  had  sense  to  reason  knew 
That  bloody  drama  must  be  gone  through. 


130 


Some  sat  and  watched  how  the  action  veered- 

Waited,  profited,  trembled,  cheered — 

We  saw  not  clearly  nor  understood, 

But,  yielding  ourselves  to  the  masterhand, 

Each  in  his  part  as  best  he  could, 

We  played  it  through  as  the  author  planned. 


140 


MAKTOOB 

A  SHELL  surprised  our  post  one  day 
And  killed  a  comrade  at  my  side. 
My  heart  was  sick  to  see  the  way 
He  suffered  as  he  died. 

I  dug  about  the  place  he  fell, 

And  found,  no  bigger  than  my  thumb, 
A  fragment  of  the  splintered  shell 
In  warm  aluminum. 

I  melted  it,  and  made  a  mould, 
And  poured  it  in  the  opening, 
And  worked  it,  when  the  cast  was  cold, 
Into  a  shapely  ring. 

And  when  my  ring  was  smooth  and  bright. 

Holding  it  on  a  rounded  stick, 
For  seal,  I  bade  a  Turco  write 
Maktoob  in  Arabic. 

MaJctoobl    "'Tis  written!"  ...    So  they  think, 

These  children  of  the  desert,  who 
From  its  immense  expanses  drink 
Some  of  its  grandeur  too. 


141 


Within  the  book  of  Destiny, 

Whose  leaves  are  time,  whose  cover,  space, 
The  day  when  you  shall  cease  to  be, 
The  hour,  the  mode,  the  place, 

Are  marked,  they  say;   and  you  shall  not 

By  taking  thought  or  using  wit 
Alter  that  certain  fate  one  jot, 
Postpone  or  conjure  it. 

Learn  to  drive  fear,  then,  from  your  heart. 

If  you  must  perish,  know,  O  man, 
'Tis  an  inevitable  part 

Of  the  predestined  plan. 

And,  seeing  that  through  the  ebon  door 

Once  only  you  may  pass,  and  meet 

Of  those  that  have  gone  through  before 

The  mighty,  the  elite 

Guard  that  not  bowed  nor  blanched  with  fear 

You  enter,  but  serene,  erect, 
As  you  would  wish  most  to  appear 
To  those  you  most  respect. 

So  die  as  though  your  funeral 

Ushered  you  through  the  doors  that  led 
Into  a  stately  banquet  hall 

Where  heroes  banqueted; 
142 


And  it  shall  all  depend  therein 

Whether  you  come  as  slave  or  lord, 
If  they  acclaim  you  as  their  kin 

Or  spurn  you  from  their  board. 

So,  when  the  order  comes:  "Attack!" 

And  the  assaulting  wave  deploys, 

And  the  heart  trembles  to  look  back 

On  life  and  all  its  joys; 

Or  in  a  ditch  that  they  seem  near 

To  find,  and  round  your  shallow  trough 
Drop  the  big  shells  that  you  can  hear 
Coming  a  hah*  mile  off; 

When,  not  to  hear,  some  try  to  talk, 

And  some  to  clean  their  guns,  or  sing, 
And  some  dig  deeper  in  the  chalk — 
I  look  upon  my  ring: 

And  nerves  relax  that  were  most  tense, 

And  Death  comes  whistling  down  unheard, 
As  I  consider  all  the  sense 

Held  in  that  mystic  word. 

And  it  brings,  quieting  like  balm 

My  heart  whose  flutterings  have  ceased, 
The  resignation  and  the  calm 

And  wisdom  of  the  East. 
143 


I  HAVE  A  RENDEZVOUS  WITH  DEATH  .  .  , 

I  HAVE  a  rendezvous  with  Death 
At  some  disputed  barricade, 
When  Spring  comes  back  with  rustling  shade 
And  apple-blossoms  fill  the  air — 
I  have  a  rendezvous  with  Death 
When  Spring  brings  back  blue  days  and  fair. 

It  may  be  he  shall  take  my  hand 
And  lead  me  into  his  dark  land 
And  close  my  eyes  and  quench  my  breath — 
It  may  be  I  shall  pass  him  still. 
I  have  a  rendezvous  with  Death 
On  some  scarred  slope  of  battered  hill, 
When  Spring  comes  round  again  this  year 
And  the  first  meadow-flowers  appear. 

God  knows  'twere  better  to  be  deep 
Pillowed  in  silk  and  scented  down, 
Where  Love  throbs  out  in  blissful  sleep, 
Pulse  nigh  to  pulse,  and  breath  to  breath, 
Where  hushed  awakenings  are  dear  .  .  . 
But  I've  a  rendezvous  with  Death 
At  midnight  in  some  flaming  town, 
When  Spring  trips  north  again  this  year, 
And  I  to  my  pledged  word  am  true, 
I  shall  not  fail  that  rendezvous. 


144 


SONNET  I 

SIDNEY,  in  whom  the  heyday  of  romance 

Came  to  its  precious  and  most  perfect  flower, 

Whether  you  tourneyed  with  victorious  lance 

Or  brought  sweet  roundelays  to  Stella's  bower, 

I  give  myself  some  credit  for  the  way 

I  have  kept  clean  of  what  enslaves  and  lowers, 

Shunned  the  ideals  of  our  present  day 

And  studied  those  that  were  esteemed  in  yours; 

For,  turning  from  the  mob  that  buys  Success 

By  sacrificing  all  Life's  better  part, 

Down  the  free  roads  of  human  happiness 

I  frolicked,  poor  of  purse  but  light  of  heart, 

And  lived  in  strict  devotion  all  along 

To  my  three  idols — Love  and  Arms  and  Song. 


145 


SONNET  II 

Nor  that  I  always  struck  the  proper  mean 

Of  what  mankind  must  give  for  what  they  gain, 

But,  when  I  think  of  those  whom  dull  routine 

And  the  pursuit  of  cheerless  toil  enchain, 

Who  from  their  desk-chairs  seeing  a  summer  cloud 

Race  through  blue  heaven  on  its  joyful  course 

Sigh  sometimes  for  a  life  less  cramped  and  bowed, 

I  think  I  might  have  done  a  great  deal  worse; 

For  I  have  ever  gone  untied  and  free, 

The  stars  and  my  high  thoughts  for  company; 

Wet  with  the  salt-spray  and  the  mountain  showers, 

I  have  had  the  sense  of  space  and  amplitude, 

And  love  in  many  places,  silver-shoed, 

Has  come  and  scattered  all  my  path  with  flowers. 


146 


SONNET  III 

WHY  should  you  be  astonished  that  my  heart, 

Plunged  for  so  long  in  darkness  and  in  dearth, 

Should  be  revived  by  you,  and  stir  and  start 

As  by  warm  April  now,  reviving  Earth? 

I  am  the  field  of  undulating  grass 

And  you  the  gentle  perfumed  breath  of  Spring, 

And  all  my  lyric  being,  when  you  pass, 

Is  bowed  and  filled  with  sudden  murmuring. 

I  asked  you  nothing  and  expected  less, 

But,  with  that  deep,  impassioned  tenderness 

Of  one  approaching  what  he  most  adores, 

I  only  wished  to  lose  a  little  space 

All  thought  of  my  own  life,  and  in  its  place 

To  live  and  dream  and  have  my  joy  in  yours. 


SONNET  IV 

TO    ...    IN   CHURCH 

IF  I  was  drawn  here  from  a  distant  place, 

'Twas  not  to  pray  nor  hear  our  friend's  address, 

But,  gazing  once  more  on  your  winsome  face, 

To  worship  there  Ideal  Loveliness. 

On  that  pure  shrine  that  has  too  long  ignored 

The  gifts  that  once  I  brought  so  frequently 

I  lay  this  votive  offering,  to  record 

How  sweet  your  quiet  beauty  seemed  to  me. 

Enchanting  girl,  my  faith  is  not  a  thing 

By  futile  prayers  and  vapid  psalm-singing 

To  vent  in  crowded  nave  and  public  pew. 

My  creed  is  simple:    that  the  world  is  fair, 

And  beauty  the  best  thing  to  worship  there, 

And  I  confess  it  by  adoring  you. 

BIARRITZ,  Sunday,  March  26,  1916. 


148 


SONNET  V 

SEEING  you  have  not  come  with  me,  nor  spent 

This  day's  suggestive  beauty  as  we  ought, 

I  have  gone  forth  alone  and  been  content 

To  make  you  mistress  only  of  my  thought. 

And  I  have  blessed  the  fate  that  was  so  kind 

In  my  life's  agitations  to  include 

This  moment's  refuge  where  my  sense  can  find 

Refreshment,  and  my  soul  beatitude. 

Oh,  be  my  gentle  love  a  little  while! 

Walk  with  me  sometimes.     Let  me  see  you  smile* 

Watching  some  night  under  a  wintry  sky, 

Before  the  charge,  or  on  the  bed  of  pain, 

These  blessed  memories  shall  revive  again 

And  be  a  power  to  cheer  and  fortify. 


SONNET  VI 

OH,  you  are  more  desirable  to  me 

Than  all  I  staked  in  an  impulsive  hour, 

Making  my  youth  the  sport  of  chance,  to  be 

Blighted  or  torn  in  its  most  perfect  flower; 

For  I  think  less  of  what  that  chance  may  bring 

Than  how,  before  returning  into  fire, 

To  make  my  dearest  memory  of  the  thing 

That  is  but  now  my  ultimate  desire. 

And  in  old  times  I  should  have  prayed  to  her 

Whose  haunt  the  groves  of  windy  Cyprus  were, 

To  prosper  me  and  crown  with  good  success 

My  will  to  make  of  you  the  rose-twined  bowl 

From  whose  inebriating  brim  my  soul 

Shall  drink  its  last  of  earthly  happiness. 


150 


SONNET  VII 

THERE  have  been  times  when  I  could  storm  and  plead, 

But  you  shall  never  hear  me  supplicate. 

These  long  months  that  have  magnified  my  need 

Have  made  my  asking  less  importunate, 

For  now  small  favors  seem  to  me  so  great 

That  not  the  courteous  lovers  of  old  time 

Were  more  content  to  rule  themselves  and  wait, 

Easing  desire  with  discourse  and  sweet  rhyme. 

Nay,  be  capricious,  willful;    have  no  fear 

To  wound  me  with  unkindness  done  or  said, 

Lest  mutual  devotion  make  too  dear 

My  life  that  hangs  by  a  so  slender  thread, 

And  happy  love  unnerve  me  before  May 

For  that  stern  part  that  I  have  yet  to  play,. 


151 


SONNET  VIII 

OH,  love  of  woman,  you  are  known  to  be 

A  passion  sent  to  plague  the  hearts  of  men; 

For  every  one  you  bring  felicity 

Bringing  rebuffs  and  wretchedness  to  ten. 

I  have  been  oft  where  human  life  sold  cheap 

And  seen  men's  brains  spilled  out  about  their  ears 

And  yet  that  never  cost  me  any  sleep; 

I  lived  untroubled  and  I  shed  no  tears. 

Fools  prate  how  war  is  an  atrocious  thing; 

I  always  knew  that  nothing  it  implied 

Equalled  the  agony  of  suffering 

Of  him  who  loves  and  loves  unsatisfied. 

War  is  a  refuge  to  a  heart  like  this; 

Love  only  tells  it  what  true  torture  is. 


152 


SONNET  IX 

WELL,  seeing  I  have  no  hope,  then  let  us  part; 

Having  long  taught  my  flesh  to  master  fear, 

I  should  have  learned  by  now  to  rule  my  heart, 

Although,  Heaven  knows,  'tis  not  so  easy  near. 

Oh,  you  were  made  to  make  men  miserable 

And  torture  those  who  would  have  joy  in  you, 

But  I,  who  could  have  loved  you,  dear,  so  well, 

Take  pride  in  being  a  good  loser  too; 

And  it  has  not  been  wholly  unsuccess, 

For  I  have  rescued  from  forgetfulness 

Some  moments  of  this  precious  time  that  flies, 

Adding  to  my  past  wealth  of  memory 

The  pretty  way  you  once  looked  up  at  me, 

Your  low,  sweet  voice,  your  smile,  and  your  dear  eyes. 


153 


SONNET  X 

I  HAVE  sought  Happiness,  but  it  has  been 
A  lovely  rainbow,  baffling  all  pursuit, 
And  tasted  Pleasure,  but  it  was  a  fruit 
More  fair  of  outward  hue  than  sweet  within. 
Renouncing  both,  a  flake  in  the  ferment 
Of  battling  hosts  that  conquer  or  recoil, 
There  only,  chastened  by  fatigue  and  toil, 
I  knew  what  came  the  nearest  to  content. 
For  there  at  least  my  troubled  flesh  was  free 
From  the  gadfly  Desire  that  plagued  it  so; 
Discord  and  Strife  were  what  I  used  to  know, 
Heartaches,  deception,  murderous  jealousy; 
By  War  transported  far  from  all  of  these, 
Amid  the  clash  of  arms  I  was  at  peace. 


154 


SONNET  XI 

ON  RETURNING  TO  THE  FRONT  AFTER  LEAVE 

APART  sweet  women  (for  whom  Heaven  be  blessed), 

Comrades,  you  cannot  think  how  thin  and  blue 

Look  the  leftovers  of  mankind  that  rest, 

Now  that  the  cream  has  been  skimmed  off  in  you. 

War  has  its  horrors,  but  has  this  of  good — 

That  its  sure  processes  sort  out  and  bind 

Brave  hearts  in  one  intrepid  brotherhood 

And  leave  the  shams  and  imbeciles  behind. 

Now  turn  we  joyful  to  the  great  attacks, 

Not  only  that  we  face  in  a  fair  field 

Our  valiant  foe  and  all  his  deadly  tools, 

But  also  that  we  turn  disdainful  backs 

On  that  poor  world  we  scorn  yet  die  to  shield — 

That  world  of  cowards,  hypocrites,  and  fools. 


SONNET  XII 

CLOUDS  rosy-tinted  in  the  setting  sun, 

Depths  of  the  azure  eastern  sky  between, 

Plains  where  the  poplar-bordered  highways  run, 

Patched  with  a  hundred  tints  of  brown  and  green,- 

Beauty  of  Earth,  when  in  thy  harmonies 

The  cannon's  note  has  ceased  to  be  a  part, 

I  shall  return  once  more  and  bring  to  these 

The  worship  of  an  undivided  heart. 

Of  those  sweet  potentialities  that  wait 

For  my  heart's  deep  desire  to  fecundate 

I  shall  resume  the  search,  if  Fortune  grants; 

And  the  great  cities  of  the  world  shall  yet 

Be  golden  frames  for  me  in  which  to  set 

New  masterpieces  of  more  rare  romance. 


156 


BELLINGLISE 


DEEP  in  the  sloping  forest  that  surrounds 

The  head  of  a  green  valley  that  I  know, 

Spread  the  fair  gardens  and  ancestral  grounds 

Of  Bellinglise,  the  beautiful  chateau. 

Through  shady  groves  and  fields  of  unmown  grass, 

It  was  my  joy  to  come  at  dusk  and  see, 

Filling  a  little  pond's  untroubled  glass, 

Its  antique  towers  and  mouldering  masonry. 

Oh,  should  I  fall  to-morrow,  lay  me  here, 

That  o'er  my  tomb,  with  each  reviving  year, 

Wood-flowers  may  blossom  and  the  wood-doves  croon; 

And  lovers  by  that  unrecorded  place, 

Passing,  may  pause,  and  cling  a  little  space, 

Close-bosomed,  at  the  rising  of  the  moon. 


n 

Here,  where  in  happier  times  the  huntsman's  horn 
Echoing  from  far  made  sweet  midsummer  eves, 
Now  serried  cannon  thunder  night  and  morn, 
Tearing  with  iron  the  greenwood's  tender  leaves. 
Yet  has  sweet  Spring  no  particle  withdrawn 
Of  her  old  bounty;    still  the  song-birds  hail, 
Even  through  our  fusillade,  delightful  Dawn; 
Even  in  our  wire  bloom  lilies  of  the  vale. 
You  who  love  flowers,  take  these;  their  fragile  bells 
Have  trembled  with  the  shock  of  volleyed  shells, 
And  in  black  nights  when  stealthy  foes  advance 
They  have  been  lit  by  the  pale  rockets'  glow 
That  o'er  scarred  fields  and  ancient  towns  laid  low 
Trace  in  white  fire  the  brave  frontiers  of  France. 

May  22,  1916. 


158 


LIEBESTOD 

I  WHO,  conceived  beneath  another  star, 

Had  been  a  prince  and  played  with  life,  instead 

Have  been  its  slave,  an  outcast  exiled  far 

From  the  fair  things  my  faith  has  merited. 

My  ways  have  been  the  ways  that  wanderers  tread 

And  those  that  make  romance  of  poverty — 

Soldier,  I  shared  the  soldier's  board  and  bed, 

And  Joy  has  been  a  thing  more  oft  to  me 

Whispered  by  summer  wind  and  summer  sea 

Than  known  incarnate  in  the  hours  it  lies 

All  warm  against  our  hearts  and  laughs  into  our  eyes, 

I  know  not  if  in  risking  my  best  days 
I  shall  leave  utterly  behind  me  here 
This  dream  that  lightened  me  through  lonesome  ways 
And  that  no  disappointment  made  less  dear; 
Sometimes  I  think  that,  where  the  hilltops  rear 
Their  white  entrenchments  back  of  tangled  wire, 
Behind  the  mist  Death  only  can  make  clear, 
There,  like  Brunhilde  ringed  with  flaming  fire, 
Lies  what  shall  ease  my  heart's  immense  desire: 
There,  where  beyond  the  horror  and  the  pain 
Only  the  brave  shall  pass,  only  the  strong  attain. 


159 


Truth  or  delusion,  be  it  as  it  may, 

Yet  think  it  true,  dear  friends,  for,  thinking  so, 

That  thought  shall  nerve  our  sinews  on  the  day 

When  to  the  last  assault  our  bugles  blow: 

Reckless  of  pain  and  peril  we  shall  go, 

Heads  high  and  hearts  aflame  and  bayonets  barer 

And  we  shall  brave  eternity  as  though 

Eyes  looked  on  us  in  which  we  would  seem  fair — 

One  waited  in  whose  presence  we  would  wear, 

Even  as  a  lover  who  would  be  well-seen, 

Our  manhood  faultless  and  our  honor  clean. 


160 


RESURGAM 

EXILED  afar  from  youth  and  happy  love, 
If  Death  should  ravish  my  fond  spirit  hence 

I  have  no  doubt  but,  like  a  homing  dove, 
It  would  return  to  its  dear  residence, 

And  through  a  thousand  stars  find  out  the  road 

Back  into  earthly  flesh  that  was  its  loved  abode. 


161 


A  MESSAGE  TO  AMERICA 

You  have  the  grit  and  the  guts,  I  know; 
You  are  ready  to  answer  blow  for  blow 
You  are  virile,  combative,  stubborn,  hard, 
But  your  honor  ends  with  your  own  back-yard; 
Each  man  intent  on  his  private  goal, 
You  have  no  feeling  for  the  whole; 
What  singly  none  would  tolerate 
You  let  unpunished  hit  the  state, 
Unmindful  that  each  man  must  share 
The  stain  he  lets  his  country  wear, 
And  (what  no  traveller  ignores) 
That  her  good  name  is  often  yours. 

You  are  proud  in  the  pride  that  feels  its  might; 
From  your  imaginary  height 
Men  of  another  race  or  hue 
Are  men  of  a  lesser  breed  to  you: 
The  neighbor  at  your  southern  gate 
You  treat  with  the  scorn  that  has  bred  his  hate. 
To  lend  a  spice  to  your  disrespect 
You  call  him  the  "greaser,"     But  reflect! 
The  greaser  has  spat  on  you  more  than  once; 
He  has  handed  you  multiple  affronts; 
He  has  robbed  you,  banished  you,  burned  and  killed; 
He  has  gone  untrounced  for  the  blood  he  spilled; 
He  has  jeering  used  for  his  bootblack's  rag 
The  stars  and  stripes  of  the  gringo's  flag; 

162 


And  you,  in  the  depths  of  your  easy-chaii 

What  did  you  do,  what  did  you  care? 

Did  you  find  the  season  too  cold  and  damp 

To  change  the  counter  for  the  camp? 

Were  you  frightened  by  fevers  in  Mexico? 

I  can't  imagine,  but  this  I  know — 

You  are  impassioned  vastly  more 

By  the  news  of  the  daily  baseball  score 

Than  to  hear  that  a  dozen  countrymen 

Have  perished  somewhere  in  Darien, 

That  greasers  have  taken  their  innocent  lives 

And  robbed  their  holdings  and  raped  their  wives. 

Not  by  rough  tongues  and  ready  fists 
Can  you  hope  to  jilt  in  the  modern  lists. 
The  armies  of  a  littler  folk 
Shall  pass  you  under  the  victor's  yoke, 
Sobeit  a  nation  that  trains  her  sons 
To  ride  their  horses  and  point  their  guns — 
Sobeit  a  people  that  comprehends 
The  limit  where  private  pleasure  ends 
And  where  their  public  dues  begin, 
A  people  made  strong  by  discipline 
Who  are  willing  to  give — what  you've  no  mind  to — 
And  understand — what  you  are  blind  to— 
The  things  that  the  individual 
Must  sacrifice  for  the  good  of  all. 


163 


You  have  a  leader  who  knows — the  man 
Most  fit  to  be  called  American, 
A  prophet  that  once  in  generations 
Is  given  to  point  to  erring  nations 
Brighter  ideals  toward  which  to  press 
And  lead  them  out  of  the  wilderness. 
Will  you  turn  your  back  on  him  once  again? 
Will  you  give  the  tiller  once  more  to  men 
Who  have  made  your  country  the  laughing-stock 
For  the  older  peoples  to  scorn  and  mock, 
Who  would  make  you  servile,  despised,  and  weak. 
A  country  that  turns  the  other  cheek, 
Who  care  not  how  bravely  your  flag  may  float, 
Who  answer  an  insult  with  a  note, 
Whose  way  is  the  easy  way  in  all, 
And,  seeing  that  polished  arms  appal 
Their  marrow  of  milk-fed  pacifist, 
Would  tell  you  menace  does  not  exist? 
Are  these,  in  the  world's  great  parliament, 
The  men  you  would  choose  to  represent 
Your  honor,  your  manhood,  and  your  pride, 
And  the  virtues  your  fathers  dignified? 
Oh,  bury  them  deeper  than  the  sea 
In  universal  obloquy; 

Forget  the  ground  where  they  lie,  or  write 
For  epitaph:  "Too  proud  to  fight." 


164 


I  have  been  too  long  from  my  country's  shores 
To  reckon  what  state  of  mind  is  yours, 
But  as  for  myself  I  know  right  well 
I  would  go  through  fire  and  shot  and  shell 
And  face  new  perils  and  make  my  bed 
In  new  privations,  if  ROOSEVELT  led; 
But  I  have  given  my  heart  and  hand 
To  serve,  in  serving  another  land, 
Ideals  kept  bright  that  with  you  are  dim; 
Here  men  can  thrill  to  their  country's  hymn, 
For  the  passion  that  wells  in  the  Marseillaise 
Is  the  same  that  fires  the  French  these  days, 
And,  when  the  flag  that  they  love  goes  by, 
With  swelling  bosom  and  moistened  eye 
They  can  look,  for  they  know  that  it  floats  there  still 
By  the  might  of  their  hands  and  the  strength  of  their  will, 
And  through  perils  countless  and  trials  unknown 
Its  honor  each  man  has  made  his  own. 
They  wanted  the  war  no  more  than  you, 
But  they  saw  how  the  certain  menace  grew, 
And  they  gave  two  years  of  their  youth  or  three 
The  more  to  insure  their  liberty 
When  the  wrath  of  rifles  and  pennoned  spears 
Should  roll  like  a  flood  on  their  wrecked  frontiers. 
They  wanted  the  war  no  more  than  you, 
But  when  the  dreadful  summons  blew 
And  the  time  to  settle  the  quarrel  came 


165 


They  sprang  to  their  guns,  each  man  was  game; 
And  mark  if  they  fight  not  to  the  last 
For  their  hearths,  their  altars,  and  their  past: 
Yea,  fight  till  their  veins  have  been  bled  dry 
For  love  of  the  country  that  will  not  die. 

O  friends,  in  your  fortunate  present  ease 
(Yet  faced  by  the  self -same  facts  as  these), 
If  you  would  see  how  a  race  can  soar 
That  has  no  love,  but  no  fear,  of  war, 
How  each  can  turn  from  his  private  role 
That  all  may  act  as  a  perfect  whole, 
How  men  can  live  up  to  the  place  they  claim 
And  a  nation,  jealous  of  its  good  name, 
Be  true  to  its  proud  inheritance, 
Oh,  look  over  here  and  learn  from  FRANCE! 


166 


INTRODUCTION  AND  CONCLUSION  OF  A 
LONG  POEM 

I  HAVE  gone  sometimes  by  the  gates  of  Death 
And  stood  beside  the  cavern  through  whose  doors 
Enter  the  voyagers  into  the  unseen. 
From  that  dread  threshold  only,  gazing  back, 
Have  eyes  in  swift  illumination  seen 
Life  utterly  revealed,  and  guessed  therein 
What  things  were  vital  and  what  things  were  vain. 
Know  then,  like  a  vast  ocean  from  my  feet 
Spreading  away  into  the  morning  sky, 
I  saw  unrolled  my  vanished  days,  and,  lo, 
Oblivion  like  a  morning  mist  obscured 
Toils,  trials,  ambitions,  agitations,  ease, 
And  like  green  isles,  sun-kissed,  with  sweet  perfume 
Loading  the  airs  blown  back  from  that  dim  gulf, 
Gleamed  only  through  the  all-involving  haze 
The  hours  when  we  have  loved  and  been  beloved. 

Therefore,  sweet  friends,  as  often  as  by  Love 
You  rise  absorbed  into  the  harmony 
Of  planets  singing  round  magnetic  suns, 
Let  not  propriety  nor  prejudice 
Nor  the  precepts  of  jealous  age  deny 
What  Sense  so  incontestably  affirms; 


167 


Cling  to  the  blessed  moment  and  drink  deep 

Of  the  sweet  cup  it  tends,  as  there  alone 

Were  that  which  makes  life  worth  the  pain  to  live. 

What  is  so  fair  as  lovers  in  their  joy 

That  dies  in  sleep,  their  sleep  that  wakes  in  joy? 

Caressing  arms  are  their  light  pillows.     They 

That  like  lost  stars  have  wandered  hitherto 

Lonesome  and  lightless  through  the  universe, 

Now  glow  transfired  at  Nature's  flaming  core; 

They  are  the  centre;    constellated  heaven 

Is  the  embroidered  panoply  spread  round 

Their  bridal,  and  the  music  of  the  spheres 

Rocks  them  in  hushed  epithalamium. 

I  know  that  there  are  those  whose  idle  tongues 
Blaspheme  the  beauty  of  the  world  that  was 
So  wondrous  and  so  worshipful  to  me. 
I  call  them  those  that,  in  the  palace  where 
Down  perfumed  halls  the  Sleeping  Beauty  lay, 
Wandered  without  the  secret  or  the  key. 
I  know  that  there  are  those,  of  gentler  heart, 
Broken  by  grief  or  by  deception  bowed, 
Who  in  some  realm  beyond  the  grave  conceive 
The  bliss  they  found  not  here;  but,  as  for  me, 


168 


In  the  soft  fibres  of  the  tender  flesh 

I  saw  potentialities  of  Joy 

Ten  thousand  lifetimes  could  not  use.     Dear  Earth, 

In  this  dark  month  when  deep  as  morning  dew 

On  thy  maternal  breast  shall  fall  the  blood 

Of  those  that  were  thy  loveliest  and  thy  best, 

If  it  be  fate  that  mine  shall  mix  with  theirs, 

Hear  this  my  natural  prayer,  for,  purified 

By  that  Lethean  agony  and  clad 

In  more  resplendent  powers,  I  ask  nought  else 

Than  reincarnate  to  retrace  my  path, 

Be  born  again  of  woman,  walk  once  more 

Through  Childhood's  fragrant,  flowery  wonderland 

And,  entered  in  the  golden  realm  of  Youth, 

Fare  still  a  pilgrim  toward  the  copious  joys 

I  savored  here  yet  scarce  began  to  sip; 

Yea,  with  the  comrades  that  I  loved  so  well 

Resume  the  banquet  we  had  scarce  begun 

When  in  the  street  we  heard  the  clarion-call 

And  each  man  sprang  to  arms — ay,  even  myself 

Who  loved  sweet  Youth  too  truly  not  to  share 

Its  pain  no  less  than  its  delight.     If  prayers 

Are  to  be  prayed,  lo,  here  is  mine!    Be  this 

My  resurrection,  this  my  recompense ! 


169 


ODE  IN  MEMORY  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
VOLUNTEERS  FALLEN  FOR  FRANCE 

(To  have  been  read  before  the  statue  of  Lafayette  and  Washington  in  Paris, 
on  Decoration  Day,  May  30,  1916.) 


AY,  it  is  fitting  on  this  holiday, 
Commemorative  of  our  soldier  dead, 
When — with  sweet  flowers  of  our  New  England  May 
Hiding  the  lichened  stones  by  fifty  years  made  gray- 
Then*  graves  in  every  town  are  garlanded, 
That  pious  tribute  should  be  given  too 
To  our  intrepid  few 
Obscurely  fallen  here  beyond  the  seas. 
Those  to  preserve  their  country's  greatness  died; 
But  by  the  death  of  these 
Something  that  we  can  look  upon  with  pride 
Has  been  achieved,  nor  wholly  unreplied 
Can  sneerers  triumph  in  the  charge  they  make 
That  from  a  war  where  Freedom  was  at  stake 
America  withheld  and,  daunted,  stood  aside. 


170 


II 

Be  they  remembered  here  with  each  reviving  spring, 

Not  only  that  in  May,  when  life  is  loveliest, 

Around  Neuville-Saint-Vaast  and  the  disputed  crest 

Of  Vimy,  they,  superb,  unfaltering, 

In  that  fine  onslaught  that  no  fire  could  halt, 

Parted  impetuous  to  their  first  assault; 

But  that  they  brought  fresh  hearts  and  springlike  too 

To  that  high  mission,  and  'tis  meet  to  strew 

With  twigs  of  lilac  and  spring's  earliest  rose 

The  cenotaph  of  those 

Who  in  the  cause  that  history  most  endears 

Fell  in  the  sunny  morn  and  flower  of  their  young  years. 

in 

Yet  sought  they  neither  recompense  nor  praise, 

Nor  to  be  mentioned  in  another  breath 

Than  their  blue  coated  comrades  whose  great  days 

It  was  their  pride  to  share — ay,  share  even  to  the  death ! 

Nay,  rather,  France,  to  you  they  rendered  thanks 

(Seeing  they  came  for  honor,  not  for  gain), 

Who,  opening  to  them  your  glorious  ranks, 

Gave  them  that  grand  occasion  to  excel, 

That  chance  to  live  the  life  most  free  from  stain 

And  that  rare  privilege  of  dying  well. 


171 


IV 

0  friends !    I  know  not  since  that  war  began 
From  which  no  people  nobly  stands  aloof 

If  in  all  moments  we  have  given  proof 
Of  virtues  that  were  thought  American. 

1  know  not  if  in  all  things  done  and  said 
All  has  been  well  and  good, 

Or  if  each  one  of  us  can  hold  his  head 

As  proudly  as  he  should, 

Or,  from  the  pattern  of  those  mighty  dead 

Whose  shades  our  country  venerates  to-day, 

If  we've  not  somewhat  fallen  and  somewhat  gone  astray 

But  you  to  whom  our  land's  good  name  is  dear, 

If  there  be  any  here 

Who  wonder  if  her  manhood  be  decreased, 

Relaxed  its  sinews  and  its  blood  less  red 

Than  that  at  Shiloh  and  Antietam  shed, 

Be  proud  of  these,  have  joy  in  this  at  least, 

And  cry:    "Now  heaven  be  praised 

That  in  that  hour  that  most  imperilled  her, 

Menaced  her  liberty  who  foremost  raised 


172 


Europe's  bright  flag  of  freedom,  some  there  were 

Who,  not  unmindful  of  the  antique  debt, 

Came  back  the  generous  path  of  Lafayette; 

And  when  of  a  most  formidable  foe 

She  checked  each  onset,  arduous  to  stem — 

Foiled  and  frustrated  them — 

On  those  red  fields  where  blow  with  furious  blow 

Was  countered,  whether  the  gigantic  fray 

Rolled  by  the  Meuse  or  at  the  Bois  Sabot, 

Accents  of  ours  were  in  the  fierce  melee; 

And  on  those  furthest  rims  of  hallowed  ground 

Where  the  forlorn,  the  gallant  charge  expires, 

When  the  slain  bugler  has  long  ceased  to  sound, 

And  on  the  tangled  wires 

The  last  wild  rally  staggers,  crumbles,  stops, 

Withered  beneath  the  shrapnel's  iron  showers: — 

Now  heaven  be  thanked,  we  gave  a  few  brave  drops; 

Now  heaven  be  thanked,  a  few  brave  drops  were  ours.5 


173 


There,  holding  still,  in  frozen  steadfastness, 

Their  bayonets  toward  the  beckoning  frontiers, 

They  lie — our  comrades — lie  among  their  peers, 

Clad  in  the  glory  of  fallen  warriors, 

Grim  clusters  under  thorny  trellises, 

Dry,  furthest  foam  upon  disastrous  shores, 

Leaves  that  made  last  year  beautiful,  still  strewn 

Even  as  they  fell,  unchanged,  beneath  the  changing  moon ; 

And  earth  in  her  divine  indifference 

Rolls  on,  and  many  paltry  things  and  mean 

Prate  to  be  heard  and  caper  to  be  seen. 

But  they  are  silent,  calm;    their  eloquence 

Is  that  incomparable  attitude; 

No  human  presences  their  witness  are, 

But  summer  clouds  and  sunset  crimson-hued, 

And  showers  and  night  winds  and  the  northern  star. 

Nay,  even  our  salutations  seem  profane, 

Opposed  to  their  Elysian  quietude; 

Our  salutations  calling  from  afar, 

From  our  ignobler  plane 

And  undistinction  of  our  lesser  parts: 

Hail,  brothers,  and  farewell;   you  are  twice  blest,  brave 

hearts. 

Double  your  glory  is  who  perished  thus, 
For  you  have  died  for  France  and  vindicated  us. 

THE  END 
174 


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